#Pregnancy : The Big Ticket Items We Bought

So these are the big-ticket items we bought during my pregnancy.

Child Car Seat

I'm a child car seat (CRS) advocate. I truly do not understand parents who are willing to spend their moolah on travelling and shopping yet did not invest in the safety of their own child. I know, for each his own but, safety first please people! 

Okay, so basically the 2 main types of car seats are the infant carrier and the convertible car seat.

Infant carrier

• Portable, easy to move around
• High mobility, some may even be compatible with a stroller (reducing the risk of waking the baby up when you want to move them)
• Limited usability (usually until the baby is 10kg or outgrew the carrier) 
• Quite heavy (around 4kg-7kg) and that's without the baby. Can't imagine lunging the car seat around
• Products from reputable brands (Chicco, Graco, Peg Perego, Maxi Cosi) may be expensive

Convertible Car Seat

• Can be used for a longer period (depends on the model)
• Safer as some models offer both rear-facing and forward-facing position
• Worthy investment (price ranges from RM500-RM1800)
• Various choices in the market
• Bulky and heavy (but not an issue because you fixed it inside the car)
• May be too big for some infants

After much, much consideration, we chose the convertible car seat. 

Chicco NextFit Zip Max

Why we choose this model;

• Accommodate rear-facing up until the baby reached 22kg. Did you know that children are 75% less likely to die or sustain serious injury in a rear-facing car seat? This is because it spreads the crash force more evenly across the back of the car seat and the child's body.
• Longevity. It can be used until the child is 30kg.
• Easy to install. Super important. If it's complicated, the possibility of mistakes during installation heightened!
• Offer more legroom. In case our baby is tall (like us), the CRS offers extended legroom, up to 25% more compared to its predecessor model. 
• As we foresee the car seat will be used for a long time, it definitely helps that the fabric is machine washable and can be removed easily with the zipper mechanism
• It has 9 recline position which will accommodate newborn 
• It comes with removable full-body newborn inserts for the safety of the newborn baby

The picture shows how a newborn baby would look like inside the CRS, with the newborn padding. I'm immediately sold. We bought the CRS at MyLovelyBaby, OUG Parklane. They do offer to install it in the car but since I bought it super early (in my 6th months of pregnancy), I'll visit them again in September 😂. 

The recommended retail price for the model was RM2,599. The promo price was RM1,799 but we managed to buy it during the super promotion period for RM1,499. It's a worthy investment I think, knowing that we will use it for a while and the fact that we'll be using it almost every day.

Baby Cot

Some people think it's unnecessary and a complete waste of money. But in our case, we opted for the baby cot. The CDC in the US recommends that newborns sleep in the same room as the parents, but in a separate sleeping space. 

We purposely search for a baby cot that is convertible to a toddler bed so it can be used for a longer period of time. It also goes without saying that we wanted a real sturdy bed. And the most important criteria for us is the highest (adjustable) bed level must be tall enough for us not to bend so much when picking the baby up. 

In case you don't know, we're tall. I'm 172cm while N is 180cm. And both of us had a history of slipped disc 😆. Therefore we wanted to minimise bending as much as possible. 

We finally found the perfect baby cot that ticks all of our requirement. 

Did you know that the drop-side cribs are banned in the US as they are dangerous and has been linked to many infants' untimely death? So don't buy drop-side cribs ya. 

We bought the baby cot from Twins Baby, Puchong. The original price was RM1,599 but there was 20% discount so it comes down to RM1,279. Thinking that the baby will spend a lot of time in the bed, we felt that the price is justified. It is super sturdy, I kid you not.

UV Sterilizer

The baby will definitely drink milk, be it au-natural breast milk or formula milk. And the bottles (at least) will need to be sterilized on a daily basis. I had difficulties imagining both of us, boiling the pot to traditionally sterilize the bottles at night after a long day at work and then letting them dry. Mind you, it has to be air-dried, as the use of tissue or cloth may transfer germs on the bottle. So much hassle! Well, thank you technology, for the invention of UV sterilizer. 

Why we opted for UV sterilizer;

• It comes in bigger sizes, so many things can be sterilized at once
• As it uses UV, we can use it to sterilize other things as well, breast pump parts, phones, toys etc
• Most of the UV sterilizers have storage function, dryers etc. So convenient!

We bought the Haenim 3G sterilizer during the promo period.

It can fit 16 bottles at once! Yeayy. You'll have to change the UV lamp annually though but for the convenience, I think it's worth it. 

Can't wait to put all these things to use.

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