The Top 10 Must-Have Essentials for Babies up to 3 Years Old

Bringing a new life into the world is a beautiful journey filled with wonder and excitement. As your baby grows from a tiny bundle of joy to an adventurous toddler, certain essentials become indispensable for their well-being, development, and happiness. From the coziness of swaddle blankets to the stimulation of educational toys and the practicality of high-quality tableware, here are ten must-have items that will guide you through the incredible first three years of your child's life. These essentials not only ensure their safety and comfort but also contribute to the joyous moments and precious memories you'll create together on this remarkable journey.

Certainly! Here's a list of 10 essential items for babies up to 3 years old:

1. Swaddle Blankets: Swaddle blankets provide comfort and security for newborns and infants. They help with sleep by mimicking the womb's warmth and coziness.

2. Educational Toys: Age-appropriate educational toys stimulate a child's cognitive development. Items like building blocks, interactive books, and puzzles engage young minds and encourage learning through play.

3. High-Quality Tableware: Invest in safe and durable tableware for your child's meals. Look for BPA-free, non-toxic materials in plates, bowls, utensils, and sippy cups to ensure their safety.

4. Stroller: A reliable stroller is a must-have for outings and walks. Choose one that suits your lifestyle, whether it's a compact travel stroller or a rugged jogging stroller.

5. Car Seat: Safety is paramount when traveling with a baby. Make sure you have a properly installed rear-facing car seat suitable for your child's age and size.

6. Diaper Bag: A well-organized diaper bag makes outings smoother. It should include essentials like diapers, wipes, changing mats, baby lotion, and a change of clothes.

7. Baby Monitor: A baby monitor with audio and video capabilities helps you keep an eye on your child while they sleep or play in another room. It offers peace of mind and convenience.

8. Childproofing Supplies: As your baby grows into a curious toddler, childproofing becomes crucial. Secure cabinets, outlets, and sharp corners with safety gates, outlet covers, and edge protectors.

9. Convertible Crib: A convertible crib that transforms into a toddler bed is a long-term investment. It adapts to your child's growth and provides a safe sleeping space.

10. Child-Friendly Books: Building a love for reading begins early. Board books with vibrant pictures, touch-and-feel textures, and simple stories are perfect for infants and toddlers.

Remember that every child is unique, so your specific needs may vary. These essentials provide a solid foundation for a safe, nurturing, and stimulating environment for your baby as they grow into a curious and active toddler.

4 Stages of must-have baby essentials for baby’s brain development

As a mom, it is so important to me to make sure my little baby’s brain is getting everything it needs to develop properly. I want my child to be healthy, smart, and even ahead of the game when it’s time to start schooling! If you’re a mom, I’m sure you feel the same way. So, I’ve made this list of 4 stages of must-have baby essentials for baby’s brain development that will give them a head start in life!

Content:

| Best essentials for newborn baby

| Best essentials for 3 months up

| Best essentials for 1 year old up

| Best essentials for 2 years old to 99 years old

Best essentials for newborn baby

Queebi pacibuddy

If you have a pacifier loving baby you've probably been through the painful experience of frantically searching for your baby's pacifier while your little love screams out in desperation for their lost soother. Search no more, there's a better way with Queebi. Queebi’s huggable designs are sized for little hands and textured for touch and exploration.

Read more: Queebi the next world’s most famous pacifier holder

Why Queebi?

Queebi is a vibrant brand of baby products

Founded by Wendy, a young mother who deeply understands the importance of providing safe and comfortable products for babies. She has devoted herself to creating a series of high-quality products that bring endless happiness to both babies and parents.

Simple, lightweight objects like Queebi work well for babies discovering cause and effect. Bonus points if the toys have tags or flaps that make them easy to hold.

Queebi has wide range of products

Not only bedtime products, Queebi also providing mealtime range and playtime range products.

Best essentials for 3 months up

Baby’s mealtimes can be a stressful part of the day, but it can also be lots of fun and a chance to share some learning with your baby. It’s important your baby has time to experiment with their food, to squish and squeeze, as well as taste everything they want to.

Grabease silicone spoon and Grabease utensils set

Children explore through touching. Mashing food supports their sensory development. Let them play with their food. You can engage with them by asking if the food feels good, is it also yummy?

And we know scooping is hard. Start with working on hand mouth connection by preloading the Grabease spoon with food for your lil one.

Read more: History of Grabease - What make Grabease so special?

Why Grabease?

Grabease is a utensils also a teether

Grabease have designed the step one - silicone spoon to be safe and soothing to chew for our children’s developing teeth and sore gums. While there's plenty of things we don't want to chew on in their early teething stages, this spoon is one of them!

Read more: Self-feeding utensils, Grabease or Bumkins silicone chewtensils?

Grabease for a proper pencil grasp development

Step two utensils, the first patented ergonomic safe self feeding utensils recommended by occupational therapists. The ergonomic handle fits comfortably in babies' natural hand grasp, making the hand-to-mouth motion easier! Using this set will also help strengthen their fingers while encouraging proper pencil grasp development.

Best essentials for 1 year old up

MOLUK Plüi and Boi

It’s not just bath time—it’s math and science time! Babies love to pour water while your little one is happily playing in the tub, she’s also learning cause and effect, how gravity works and observing the volume of water, and these are early science skills.

MOLUK Plüi Rain Cloud and Rain Ball

Both Plüi Rain Cloud and Rain Ball beautifully illustrates the cycle of water and magically turns kids into little rainmakers. The smart bath toy works like a pipette and makes simple physics tangible and fun. The Pluï Cloud is sure to inspire wonderful stories. It delights and surprises and quickly becomes an indispensable accessory during bath time. The lower half of Plüi Rain Ball is made from elastic silicone rubber is wonderful to touch and offers exciting new play possibilities. Push the feet in Plüi Rain Ball to create a big water fountain. Pluï encourages children to experiment and explore while stimulating their imagination and senses.

Read more: Recommended toys to develop child's skills for the future!

Plüi Rain Cloud

The lower half of Plüi Rain Ball is made from elastic silicone rubber

Plüi Rain Ball

MOLUK Boi

Boi floats and dances in and out of the bathtub. Is it a penguin, a duck or some other bird? We let the children decide. No matter how you spin or roll it, Boi always gets back upright again and continues to bravely explore the world.

Best essentials for 2 years old to 99 years old

The multi-award winning Bilibo is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and versatile open-ended toys. Deceptively simple and magically attractive, Bilibo's iconic shell shape and bright colors immediately appeal to children. Bilibo arouses curiosity, engages the imagination and playfully trains basic motor skills and balance. Both boys and girls find unlimited ways to play with Bilibo – using it to rock and spin in, hide under, sit on, tote with and peek through. Bilibo provides hours of fun, indoors and outdoors - all year round.

Why Bilibo?

Bilibo engage your child's curiosity, imagination and physical abilities

Kids think it's a turtle shell, a rock, a stepping stone, a rocking bowl and so much more, and parents think it's an awesome way to develop their kids' strengths. Crawl under, climb on top, walk across, rock inside or spin endlessly inside this magical plastic shell. Use at home, at the park, at the beach, in the water, and even in the snow, Bilibo provides hours of stimulating play.

Here are more about benefits of playing with Bilio

• Great for individual play or group activities

• Ideal for kids with sensory processing disorder and autism

• Helps with motor planning and balance training

• A good source of vestibular input

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“The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment.”

— Maria Montessori

4 Must know about self feeding

Self feeding is an important development for children. Teaching children to self feeding may not be an easy thing. But feeding your child continuously until he grows up is not good either. This will only hinder its development.

Self feeding in children comes in phases, making it a long drawn out, but extremely rewarding, journey for you and your child. Although your child needs to reach toddlerhood to have the physical ability to self feed, it helps to start early. Here are the 4 must know things before you start letting your baby self feeding.

Content:

| Self feeding advantages

| How to encourage self feeding

| Best self feeding age

| My favorite self feeding spoon

Self feeding advantages

Some parents choose to continue feeding their children because they don't want their children to be messy or dirty while eating alone. In fact, this is a learning process that children must go through. Baby led weaning (BLW) is a method that allows babies to self feeding. Mama only needs to prepare food that has been processed according to the baby's ability to eat, then the baby can use his hands to take and feed the food. Letting children eat alone also teaches him many things. Self feeding have many advantages.

Read more: Why letting your baby self-feeding is worth the mess

To prevent obesity

One of them is keeping children connected to their basic instincts (hunger) and listening to their own body cues (satiety). When a child is fed by another person, the child has the potential to eat more than they need, causing them to lose touch with their basic bodily instincts. In addition, it can also trigger stomach upset and can lead to eating problems later in life, such as obesity.

Helping children recognize the taste and texture of food

In applying the BLW method, food is served in a solid and larger form. This will allow your little one to recognize the texture because it is easy to grip. In addition, this method also introduces your little one to the various tastes, colors and aromas of the food he consumes.

Read more: Start feeding your kids solid food with this

Support children's motor development

Implementing the BLW method can support your little one's motor development, you know, Bun. This method can be a means for your little one to train eye and hand coordination, as well as chewing and grasping skills.

Read more: How to help my baby develop their pincer grasp?

Make children enjoy the food they eat

Teaching your little one this method allows him to enjoy the food he is eating without the need to be forced to open his mouth. In addition, your little one can also be introduced to many types of food.

How to encourage self feeding

Don't help put food in their mouth

You could say BLW is a method for making your little one independent when eating. You should really try to step back and believe that your baby can put food well in his mouth. Don't help put food in his mouth and you don't have to worry if you think he doesn't eat much. At this stage, food is a way for your little one to experiment and learn. As extra nutrition, your child will get what he needs from his milk, whether formula milk or breast milk.

Try offering a variety of foods

After your baby learns to use a spoon (holding objects between fingers and thumbs a.k.a. pincer grasp), you can introduce berries and raisins, or peas. Don't overwhelm your baby with too much food, having in front of him two or three items at a time is sufficient.

Read more: Baby's first solid food

Be patient

It is better if you don't rush when you want to let your children self feeding, because your child will choke on food if his age is not suitable, another reason is because he is not good at chewing food that is too solid. Wait until your baby is six months old and make sure he can sit up straight before starting self feeding. Be patient is the key.

Nothing comes easy with the baby. Every habit and every successful milestone is a result of someone’s effort. It could be you, your nanny, your spouse, the siblings or even strangers.

Read more: 3 Rules you must follow when giving first food to your children

Best self feeding age

Learning to self feeding can generally begin at the age of 9 months, when children are able to grasp their own food. At this age, parents is allowed to give them finger foods or foods that are easy to grasp. Children will become interested in holding their own spoon, fork, or water bottle in both hands when they are 13–15 months old.

In my daughter case, I let her start hold when she was 7 months. The food does not always fill the spoon and she not always succeeds in putting it in her mouth. Not a little food will also fall on the floor or table.

Around 18-24 months of age, they will begin to be adept at putting their own food into his mouth less messy. However, your little one must always be supervised when learning to eat on their own. Because they are still learning, sometimes children may choke, cough, or vomit. Later when your little one enters the age of 24–36 months, they will be more adept at eating and enjoying their own food without the need for help from adults.

My favorite self feeding spoon

You might be wondering if you can just get away with using a regular old steel spoon to feed your baby. After all, if it’s good enough for you to eat with, shouldn’t it be fine for a baby?

Some old-school parents will shrug and say that you can feed a toddler just fine without buying yet another special tool. But most feeding authorities recommend using a shallow, plastic children’s spoon for feeding, since it’s easier for them to eat from and won’t hurt their delicate mouths.

Read more: Baby essentials that is important for your children's development

Combined spoon and teether

Some spoons are made a little larger with a more chewy texture, for those teething kids who to bite down on as they eat. The teething element may encourage some kids to use the spoon.

Grabease stage 1 silicone spoon

The soft spoon is perfect for tiny mouths during the early stages of self-feeding, and the textured handle soothes little one's gums during teething. Kickstart BLW with Grabease stage 1 self-feeding silicone spoon.

Shaped ergonomic spoons

Little hands can be clumsy and a spoon is hard to hold. This style of spoon is usually chunkier and shaped to help toddlers get to grips with their fine motor skills.

Grabease stage 2 spoon and fork

Grabease patented fork and spoon sets were the first utensils designed with babies’ independence in mind, and they come highly recommended by Occupational Therapists. The ergonomic handle fits comfortably in babies' natural hand grasp, making the hand-to-mouth motion easier. This set will also help strengthen their fingers while encouraging proper pencil grasp development (this will come in handy later!).

BONUS! Yummy and healthy ice cream for your baby with Grabease

Grabease all-over bib review

Every baby is different when it comes to feeding time and drooling. One bib that works great for one baby might not be so great for another. After more than 2 months use, I finally can write about Grabease all-over bib review, a review from observing my daughter’s experience.

2 months ago, my daughter started her BLW journey. BLW are amazing and I truly believe this style of introducing solid food to your baby has so many positives. However, the biggest con of baby led feeding is that it can be really messy and frustrating to clean up your baby after a messy meal. 

A great bibs (and floor mats) will help you to feel so much happier while doing baby led feeding! You won’t have to constantly stress about the mess and instead can enjoy eating with your baby.

Read more: Despite all the mess that BLW might caused, it is so worth it!

Content:

| Grabease all-over bib introduction

| Grabease all-over bib review

| The final thoughts about Grabease all-over bib

Grabease all-over bib introduction:

Grabease all-over bib contains all of your little one’s mess at meal time! Grabease oversized bib with stretchy elastic hem pairs easily with any high chair. It made from lightweight, stain resistant, and washable fabric. Grabease constructed their all-over bib with a single layer to keep debris and yucky gunk from getting trapped. Stretchy neck and arm holes. Sized to fit from 6 to 24 months. Wipeable and machine washable for the easy clean up you have been dreaming of!

Grabease all-over bib review

The good:

• Large size covers my baby’s and it perfectly pairs with my high chair

• Lightweight - roll up the bib for easy storage or to bring it on-the-go!

• Washable, both machine and hand wash, remember to hang dry completely before storing

• Safe! It BPA-free, PVC-free, vinyl-free, phthalate-free and lead-free

• 100% polyester with TPU coating for waterproofing - it really keeps my baby dry from drool and spills

• I love its colors, especially the blush one!

• Grabease all-over bib has a short sleeves, but this what makes me even love it more, I live in Asia the weather is quite hot here, my daughter couldn’t stand the heat if she wears a long sleeves bib

• You can even use it as cover while making your own baby’s hairstyle

The not so good:

• You need to have either booster chair or high chair to use it, some restaurant don’t have neither of them, so need to use regular bib

• I am not a big fan of their stretchy neck and arm holes, my baby doesn’t really enjoy it

• They are a bit pricey comparing with other bibs’ brand

Read also: Baby bibs for BLW: Grabease all-over bib, Bumkins sleeved bib, or Tidy-tot bib?

My final thoughts about Grabease all-over bib

If you’re looking for bibs with sleeves to keep your toddler clean during meals or art, then this is a great purchase and better quality than its competitors. Highly recommend Grabease all-over bibs for a gift. Their always have amazing packaging! The colors are very eye catching.

Thanks to Mom of 1, Amelia for sending us this review.

It's meal time! The best baby bowls and plates in 2019

There are many development stages in each baby's age. For example, when your baby 6 months old, it is time to start eating extra meal as a companion for breast milk. Parents must be careful in choosing companion meal. The baby's digestive tract is still not as perfect as an adult, so the food must be considered properly.

After introducing solid food to baby, the next step should be learning to eat by themselves. What is the benefit of self-feeding for baby? Beside practicing their motor skills, self-feeding also makes them independent from an early age. You would like to have the proper bowls and plates for success, here’s a list of our favorite baby feeding essentials to help reduce the mess and stress.

Best baby bowls

Avanchy Bamboo Suction Baby Bowl + Spoon

This beautifully designed bamboo set is so cool, you’ll want to eat from it. The organic material is resistant to mold and mildew, and it’s environmentally friendly. The bowl also suctions to surfaces, providing a stable base for little ones learning to feed themselves. And the airtight lock mechanism lets you know for sure that it’s stuck in place.

Keep in mind, these are hand-wash only and can’t be used in the microwave.

Olababy Steam Bowl

Made from BPA- and phthalate-free, food-grade silicone, this bowl can be placed in a saucepan or steamer to safely warm up baby puree or steam veggies without killing off the nutrients. Plus the bowl doesn’t get hot as it steams, so it won’t be too warm for baby. It’s dishwasher safe and can be used in the microwave, as well.

Read more: 3 Rules you must follow when giving first food to your children

Thinkbaby BPA Free Baby Bowl

If you’re avoiding plastic, the Thinkbaby bowl is a durable alternative. Dishwasher safe, it’s made from stainless steel. Since it comes with a lid, you can use it to pack snacks for outings.

Keep in mind, just like plastic, you won’t be able to put this bowl in the microwave.

Best baby plates

ezpz Mini Mat, Happy Mat

Outsmart baby’s tendency to toss his plate on the floor with ezpz’s Mini Mat, a one-piece silicone plate and placemat combo that suctions to the table (or any flat surface). The multiple compartments encourage parents to serve a variety of foods, and its lightweight enough to bring along on trips or dinners out. Made from 100 percent food-grade silicone, it’s BPA, BPS, PVC, lead and phthalate FREE and dishwasher safe. These baby plates even come in a variety of colors.

I love that the design makes it possible for parents to stack and serve two or more mats at a time. That means you can easily use these when you have more than one little child at the table.

Read more: The best baby spoon fork in 2019

ezpz Happy Mat

ezpz Mini Mat

WeeSprout Silicone Divided Toddler Plates

They are practical and made with silicone, which happens to be unbreakable aka toddler-proof. These plates are microwave and dishwasher safe, so clean up is super easy! Surprisingly, WeeSprout plates are also oven and freezer safe, and they don’t transfer heat! The plates come in a set of three, and they are made of 100% FDA certified silicone. Unlike other silicone products, these don’t have a weird taste or smell. They are also BPA-free for safety. It’s one of the best silicone baby dishes which I really recommend.

IKEA SMASKA Plates

Available in colorful, three-piece sets, these no-fuss plates and bowls are microwave safe and dishwasher safe. Don’t let the low cost make you think they’re not safe - these products are also BPA free. It is a budget friendly plate!

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Bobo & Boo Bamboo Kids Plates

If you are looking for eco-friendly toddler plates, Bobo & Boo are some of the best choices! Sold in a set of four. These plates are made with sustainably sourced bamboo, which means they’re non-toxic, BPA and PVC free. Bobo&Boo uses FDA-approved, food-grade bamboo, which means they are baby and environmentally friendly! I also love that, instead of paint, Bobo&Boo mixed natural pigments into the bamboo by-products, so you never have to worry about them chipping or flaking in your child’s food.

Read more: The 5 best straw cups for your baby in 2019

Choosing What’s Right for You

Now that your child has a whole new, edible world to explore, meals become one big adventure. What you use to feed your wee one should make life easier for you and more fun for them. Introducing taste buds to savory and sweet treats is one of the greatest joys of parenthood. Bon appetit!