Baby Registry Checklist: What You Actually Need (by Category)

Fifty-eight things, ten categories, and an honest line between what you need on day one and what can wait until you know your baby.

Registry checklists online tend to run to a hundred items, half of them gadgets. This one is shorter on purpose. It's the same list that powers our free baby registry: 58 items in 10 categories, with the essentials marked — the things most families use from the first weeks. Everything else is nice to have, or can wait.

Feeding

• Essentials: baby bottles, a bottle steriliser, burp cloths.
• Nice to have: a breast pump, a nursing pillow, bibs.
• Later (around six months): a high chair and a first-foods set of bowls and spoons.

Sleeping

• Essentials: a crib or cot, a crib mattress, fitted sheets, swaddles, a baby monitor.
• Nice to have: a bassinet or bedside crib for the first months, sleep sacks, a white noise machine.

Diapering

• Essentials: newborn diapers, wipes, a changing pad, nappy rash cream, a changing bag.
• Nice to have: a nappy disposal bin.

Diapers are the one gift you can never have too many of — ask for a few sizes, not just newborn, because babies outgrow the smallest size fast.

Clothing

• Essentials: bodysuits, sleepsuits (footed pyjamas), socks and hats.
• Nice to have: scratch mittens for the newborn weeks, a knit cardigan, a coming-home outfit.

Bathing

• Essentials: a baby bath, hooded towels, gentle baby wash.
• Nice to have: washcloths, bath toys.

Health & safety

• Essentials: a baby thermometer, a nail clipper and file set.
• Nice to have: a nasal aspirator, a baby first-aid kit.
• Later (once baby moves): safety gates and outlet covers.

Gear

• Essentials: an infant car seat, a stroller or pram.
• Nice to have: a baby carrier or wrap, a travel cot, a bouncer.

The car seat and stroller are the big-ticket items. On a registry they work well as a group gift: family can agree in the group chat to share one, and one person claims it.

Nursery

• Nice to have: a dresser or changing table, a nursing chair, a night light, blackout blinds, storage baskets.

Nothing here is essential. Many babies sleep in the parents' room for the first months, and a changing pad on any safe, stable surface does the job of a changing table.

Play

• Essentials: a play mat or activity gym, baby board books.
• Nice to have: a first teddy, rattles, teething toys.

Help & experiences

The most valuable gifts often cost nothing. Put them on the registry so everyone — including relatives who can't spend much — has something to give:

• Cooked meals for the first weeks (an essential, honestly).
• A night of babysitting.
• A day of chores — laundry, cleaning, shopping.
• A newborn photo shoot.

The essentials at a glance

Adopting an older baby?

If the child you're welcoming is six months or older, skip the newborn-only items — steriliser, breast pump, nursing pillow, bassinet, swaddles, scratch mittens and a coming-home outfit — and move the high chair, first foods and safety gates up your list. When you start a registry for an adoption and give the child's age, our starter checklist leaves the newborn-only items out for you.

Where to buy it all

On our registry, each checklist item opens a search in a store in the parents' country — Amazon where it sells, otherwise the big local store, like Daraz in Pakistan or Tokopedia in Indonesia — and you can add anything from any shop by pasting its link. If the registry you wanted isn't available where you live, read how to make a baby registry outside the US, or go straight to your country: UAE, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico & Latin America, Arabic or any other country.