Oh baby, there are a lot of brands to choose from for your little one! Finding some of the brands that worked best for Ash was all trial and error, sometimes more error than trial. There are a few brands that I am in “mommy love” with so I thought I would share my list. FYI, I’m still trying to find the best hair styling products for his glorious mane!
Here goes 6 of my personal favorite baby brands:
- Nuna
The Nuna brand is my absolute favorite for baby gear. Simple? Yes! Practical? Yes! Stylish? Yes! Our very first buy was a car seat. I did a google search on “safest car seats” and I saw the Nuna Pipa pop up more than a few times. We purchased it from Nordstrom but you can also get it from stores like Pottery Barn Kids or Neiman Marcus. For us it came down to the Chicco key fit vs the Nuna Pipa. Weight and style tipped Nuna over the edge for us. The Nuna was lighter, weighing in at 7.7 pounds (vs the Chiccos 9.6 lbs). That little bit of extra weight matters. Especially when you are towing a growing baby out of the car in one hand, and a 5 pound diaper bag in the other. The Nuna seat also had some other great features that made it appealing. It comes with a load leg that extends from the base of your infant car seat to the floor of the vehicle. This extra connection between the seat and vehicle apparently absorbs crash forces better. I also read that it reduces forward rotation of the infant seat on impact, protecting your baby’s spine! We were sold! You can read more about load legs from consumer reports here.
We loved the great quality and design of this car seat. Now our house is a Nuna advertisement. We have the sena travel crib and changer, leaf CURV baby seat and toy bar, ZAAZ high chair, and TAVO stroller!
The TAVO stroller is my favorite. It’s beautiful and works easy peasy with the car seat.
- Noodle and Boo
Noodle and Boo wins my vote for best baby products. I will be writing about our nightmare with eczema soon. Skin sensitivities, eczema outbreaks, and allergic reactions made for quite the challenge. I can’t count how many products we tried in search to find something that had good chemistry with our baby’s skin.
Why didn’t I know about Noodle and Boo before? My favorite is their ultimate ointment. I totally believe it ended our cradle crap craziness. Check out the three day treatment for cradle cap here. The Ultimate ointment is “hypoallergenic “and “fragrance free.” Though their signature fragrance is so light and heavenly I keep a bottle of the room spray for the nursery.
You can get Noodle and Boo products at places like Babies “R” Us, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. I usually order straight from noodleandboo.com because I buy their products in greater quantity now. For a moment I actually became a Noodle and Boo product junkie! It was the only brand that didn’t flare his skin with issues. Well, all except for their talc free baby powder. That didn’t work so well.
We’ve used the calendula baby balm, which seemed to help a lot with his cheek chafing. We still use the ultimate ointment, extra gentle shampoo, conditioning hair polish, bouncing baby bubbles and the french milled baby soap.
Every time I am invited to a baby shower, ultimate ointment is an automatic part of any gift I give. Every new mom should have a tube!
- Seventh Generation
The very first baby laundry detergent I tried was All free and clear. Ash’s skin eventually told us to try something else. Some recommended Dreft, but Ash clearly had skin irritation with that too. Even with extra rinsing. Seventh generation free and clear is what we currently use with basically no problems. You can buy it practically everywhere, Target, Whole Foods, Meijer, Babies “R” Us, pick a store!
Noodle and Boo now has a laundry detergent. I ordered samples (back when I was going through my product junkie phase with them) but have yet to try it. My thoughts are Seventh Generation has worked fine so if it’s not broke don’t try to fix it.
- Bambo Nature
Huggies or Pampers? I went with Pampers (for no particular reason). We used Pampers brand for months. When the skin woes showed up, especially skin changes along Ash’s diaper line, I was on the hunt for a new nappy. For a while we used cloth diapers, Charlie Banana brand. These were awesome and Ash loved them! But we still needed to have a disposable diaper brand that worked for us. We tried Earth’s Best (which was discontinued), Seventh Generation (also discontinued/revamped), and Honest. Honest was promising, just not my absolute favorite. I was not so gung ho about leaking, because in a perfect storm there is always potential for leaking. We did go through a period of consistent leaking with Honest. There is always the possibility of user error though.
Anyway, we are currently using eco-friendly Bambo Nature. They are way softer than Honest and we have not had any problems with leakage so far. The liquid-sensitive strip (that changes color to show wetness) is available in all sizes, so that’s a plus! The only “con” to this brand is that I have yet to find them in store so there are no “we are out of diapers, quick store runs.” I buy in bulk online at bambonatureusa.com. If there is a delay in shipping, Honest is my back up.
- Melissa and Doug
These are my favorite toys for Ash. I love the vintage feel of their wood toys. You can find them online at melissaanddoug.com . I’ve also seen their toys everywhere from Home goods, to Saks Off 5th, to the checkout line at Whole foods. Some of our first purchases were the geometric stacker, band in a box set, and ABC/123 wooden blocks. We also have a few of their puzzles! FYI, it is national puzzle month so all of their puzzles are on sale for 15% off (use code: puzzle15)! My personal favorite has been the pull-back cars. Brian’s favorite is the bowling friends preschool playset (go figure)! Recently one of the physician assistants I work with offered to pass down some of her kids old toys to Ash. Lo and behold, more Melissa and Doug puzzles (and they still look brand new). I guess they are a common favorite!
- Munchkin
Munchkin made the list by default. We could not find a bottle that my little Noodle would drink from. We spent so much time and money trying to find a bottle that he would agree with. From Dr. Browns, to Nuk, to Avent, to Nuby, to Medela, he was not having it! My mom was my savior and brought a Munchkin Latch Bottle to us. If it wasn’t for this bottle I would still be driving home on my lunch break to nurse **insert exasperated eyed emoji here**. Thanks mom!
What are some of your fav baby brands?
