Baby Products: The Essentials

There are many types of pregancy test kits today. Most are VERY accurate, similar in accuracy to the test your doctor will use. Prices are getting lower all of the time.

They are very simple to use and all work more or less the same way, requring a small sample of urine. With a pregancy strip, you dip the strip in a cup of urine. With a cassette (such as the two shown in the photo above), you use a small dropper to transfer a sample of urine into the cassette.

In about 1 minute you will see the result. One line tells you the result is negative, two lines tell you it is positive. In our case, we got one dark line and one light line (see the photos below). So, we tried again with a different brand. But again we got one dark line and one light line. A third kit showed the same thing. Finally we realized that all the kits were telling us the same result. We are pregnant!

If you are just trying to get pregnant buy a large box and keep them handy. Like us, you will most likely be checking often.

If you are intending to get pregnant, you have to think about vitamins. Sometime before you start trying to get pregancy or soon as you can, you should start taking prenatal vitamins. What is the difference you ask?

According to the Mayo Clinic, one of the leading medical centers in the USA:

Most prenatal vitamins contain more folic acid, calcium and iron than do standard adult multivitamins

* Folic acid helps prevent neural tube defects - serious abnormalities of the brain and spinal cord. Folic acid may also decrease the risk of preterm delivery and low birth weight.

* Calcium promotes strong bones and teeth for both mother and baby. Calcium also helps your circulatory, muscular and nervous systems run normally.

* Iron supports the development of blood and muscle cells for both mother and baby. Iron helps prevent anemia, a condition in which blood lacks adequate healthy red blood cells. Iron may also decrease the risk of preterm delivery and low birth weight.

Your normal multivitamin certainly contains all of these vitamins, but most likely NOT enough to support a growing fetus. Make sure you are taking Prenatal Vitamins or Vitamins developed for pregnancy.

Which is the best? Everyone will have their own opinion and we will not recommend one particular brand. Take example, folic acid, often you will read something such as:

"Before pregancy 400 micrograms is recommended. Once you become pregnant the dosage should be increased to at least 600 mcg and your doctor may recommend 1000 mcg or more".

There are lots of different recommendations and probably any prenatal vitamin from a reputable company is going to be fine. But it is BEST to start taking them BEFORE you start trying to have a baby. You might as well buy in bulk if it is less expensive that way.

We will buy a baby movement sensor. As any parents, we are of course worried about everything. One thing we will worry about is SIDS. A baby movement sensor may help us with that. However, we have several concerns.

We read about them being over sensitive and not sensitive enough. Some compain of false alarms others complain that even when the baby is not in its bed, the sensor still detects it and no alarm is sounded.

In our case, we are planning on having the baby's crib in our bedroom. So we are worried that the sensor will detect us.

Lots of issues to research, but these sensors below receive very high approval ratings so they are sensors we will consider when making a purchase. If you have experience with baby movement sensors, please let us know your thoughts in the comment box at the bottom of this page.

If you are first time parents like us, you will probably want to get some baby books. Not a book FOR your baby but a book about babies to help you learn to be a better parent. We thought about Dr. Spock, but decided after a bit of reading that his information is outdated.

After doing some research and seeing what was being recommended, these are the books we bought. Why did we pick them?

* They are all top selling books. If lots of people like them, there must be a reason.

* They are all highly rated books.

* We read alot of the comments and liked what the reviewers had to say about the books.

* These books were recently written. We were suprised to realize that parenting concepts change rather rapidly. You will want to buy something up-to-date.

* Attractive price: All of the books are betwee $10 - $12.

We still have a few months to read them and will let you know our thoughts after we have had a chance to read them ourselves: