Deinfluencing Your Baby Registry: Baby Products You Totally Don’t Need

Congratulations, you’re expecting… and now you’re being spammed with influencer ads telling you about all the baby products you need to have. Sure, influencers can be super helpful in showing you the coolest new baby products to add to your registry. But they can also make you end up with a house full of trendy baby gear and cutesy items that—trust us—you won’t actually use. So we’re here to rescue you by deinfluencing your baby registry.

That’s right—we’re sharing 12 baby products you don’t actually need. We’ve been there, done that, and wasted our money so that you don’t have to! By deinfluencing your baby registry, we’re helping you make room for the baby products you actually will use—from the best baby sleep aids to space-saving baby gear—and helping to keep unnecessary items out of landfills. That’s a win for you and the planet!

For more ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, check out our Earth Kids Guide and sign up for the Earth Kids newsletter. 

You don’t need a separate baby food processor—a regular blender works just fine.

12 Baby Products You Actually Don’t Need on Your Baby Registry

1. Baby Food Processor

If you’re planning to make your own baby food, you might already be thinking ahead to the devices you’ll need. But there are a couple of reasons to leave a baby food processor off of your baby registry. First off, babies don’t begin eating solids until around 6 months old. Secondly, if you have a regular blender, that’ll work just fine to puree your little one’s first foods.

2. Wipe Warmer

Sure, a warm wipe on your baby’s bum sounds very spa-like and zen. But wiping happens so quickly that in general, your baby will be snuggled back up in their blanket before they get a chance to feel much discomfort over a room-temperature wipe. You’ll also save energy, time, and space by not having to plug in a bulky machine, constantly refill it with wipes, and worry about what room it’s in.

3. Pee-pee Teepees

If you’re not even sure what these are, consider yourself lucky. Pee-pee teepees are cloth cones that are placed on baby boys’ private areas during diaper changes to avoid accidental showers mid-change. But your chances of catching the pee before it happens—or of keeping the cone in place—are pretty low, and you’ll still need to clean up if there’s an accidental fountain of pee. So it’s better to just keep the diaper folded up as best you can during a change and focus on being speedy.

4. Expensive, Fancy Baby Toys

Babies don’t usually start to play with toys until they’re about 6 months old. A younger baby just won’t be able to hold onto a fancy toy, and even if they could, chances are it would go straight into their mouth or right onto the floor. Sometimes the best entertainment comes from family members making funny faces or reading stories, or from regular household items like plastic measuring spoons or cups.

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Resist the urge to buy tiny sneakers—babies don’t need shoes until they can walk.

5. Baby Shoes

Though there are few things more adorable than teeny-tiny sneakers, shoes are unnecessary at the beginning of life. Spoiler alert—babies can’t walk! So save yourself some money and ditch this baby-registry item. Instead, purchase some cute baby socks to keep their feet nice and warm.

6. Baby Powder

You may have read about baby powder recalls or harmful ingredients like talc in certain baby powder brands. But some experts are more concerned with baby powder causing respiratory issues in infants that inhale it. For those reasons, it’s safer to just leave the baby powder off your registry. Instead, opt for diaper creams or ointments such as Desitin or Aquaphor to prevent diaper rash.

7. Baby Detergent

With piles of tiny clothes covered in spit-up (or worse), you won’t always have time to run a separate laundry load just for baby. And that’s OK, because you don’t actually need to use a special, expensive baby detergent. It’s perfectly safe to wash your baby’s clothes in regular “free and clear” detergent that does not contain irritable perfumes or dyes—and will also clean the rest of the family’s clothes just fine.

8. Crib Bumpers

Crib bumpers—cotton pads that line the edge of a crib—were once all the rage. They were designed to prevent babies from banging into the sides of a crib or getting their limbs stuck. But crib bumpers—even the newer, breathable kind— have been found to increase the risk of suffocation, strangulation, and entrapment for babies. They are now banned under the Safe Sleep for Babies Act of 2021, making them illegal to sell and distribute.

RELATED: How to Get Free Stuff, Save Money, and Reduce Waste

Plush crib bedding is not only unncessary, it can also be unsafe. 

9. Plush Baby Bedding

Like crib bumpers, plush blankets and pillows can increase the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines state that babies should be put to sleep on their backs with nothing but a fitted sheet in their crib. You’ll just be taking those pretty pillows and that fancy comforter out of the crib every time the baby goes down for a nap, and they won’t look as cute when they’re cluttering up the nursery. 

10. Newborn Diapers

We’re not recommending that newborn babies “go commando.” We’re just saying that babies grow so fast, most of them only wear newborn diapers for a few weeks at most. Some even skip right to size 1! That being said, you may not need more newborn diapers than the ones the hospital sends you home with. So leave the newborn diapers off your registry and start looking into the best diaper subscriptions that will deliver the correct sizes right to your front door.

11. Changing Table

This is one piece of furniture that not only takes up unnecessary space, you’ll also have no use for it once your baby is out of diapers. Plus, you’ll end up changing your baby wherever you are in your home and not always in the nursery. So instead of adding a changing table to your baby registry, register instead for a changing pad you can secure onto a dresser in the nursery, as well as for foldable changing pads you can leave in other areas of the house.

12. Snap-up Pajamas

Can you imagine trying to snap up a ton of tiny buttons while your baby squirms and flails after a middle-of-the-night diaper change? Trust us—it’s as awful as it sounds. Instead, opt for zip-up baby PJs (just be careful to avoid snagging your baby’s delicate skin).