Registries are often wasted on soon-to-be-parents. In this series, cool new (-ish) moms and dads tell us about the stuff that’s actually worked for them in the time since they had a kid. In other words: If they could do their baby registry all over again, here are the items that would top the list.
Even with all the free time in the world, making a baby registry is difficult. But try doing it when you just found out you are having twins and are working 18 hours a day. Actress and producer Hilary Swank — whose new film, Ordinary Angels, is now in theaters — dealt with this predicament the way most soon-to-be moms would. She asked her friends if she could use their registries as a jumping-off point.
“I was working so hard when I found out I was pregnant, so I didn’t have a lot of time to do the research that I had wanted to do. Instead, I asked Molly Smith, a producer friend of mine who also had twins, if I could use her registry and kind of roll with it. Emmy Rossum also let me use her registry to help me get started,” Swank says. Still, no amount of friend wisdom can fully prepare you for the challenges of pumping milk for two babies while traveling cross-country for work. We talked to Swank about the solutions she finally found to make hotel naps less frustrating, to help her breastfeed two babies, and to keep playtime simple and fun.
Everyone talks about the special onesies and the best car seat. But this book has had a much more profound impact on how I am parenting my babies. I wish I had read it before I actually gave birth, because you don’t have time to read once you give birth. And leading up to their arrival was such a nice, quiet time in comparison, that I could have started thinking about all of this stuff. The Nurture Revolution is about growing your baby’s brain and supporting their mental health through nurture. Greer Kirshenbaum is a neuroscientist, and she is so steeped in scientific data that I found really fascinating.
This has been a game changer for me because of the way I travel. So, in the beginning, I would pump and store the milk on ice and hope that it would be okay through a cross-country flight or something. But this thermos thing chills the milk for 24 hours. It’s legit, like it is always cold when it comes out. This way I’m never afraid my milk will go bad even if I can’t get it into a refrigerator. We have so many things we need to be thinking about as moms, we shouldn’t have to be worried about whether our breast milk is going to stay fresh.
I have friends who swore by these supplements and highly recommended them. And so, when the time came, I tried a couple of different ones and landed on the Liquid Gold. It worked really well for me. I was just talking to my husband about this because it’s actually my last week of breastfeeding, which always felt hard, especially with trying to feed them in tandem. So at a certain point I started to just exclusively pump. This was my happy medium. And I found that with this supplement, I started producing more milk, which made me feel good. Everyone’s different, but for me it worked.
I travel a lot, and before getting this, I was always looking for the best blackout curtains. None of the ones I bought really worked: light would always end up coming through, they wouldn’t fit the windows in hotels that were all different sizes, and it was just a headache. I had a girlfriend who told me that I had to get this, and she sent me a picture of it. It has been a game changer, because it folds up really small so you can pack it into a suitcase easily. I have to travel with two of them, so that’s important. It’s a blackout tent that you put over the crib to help your baby sleep better. It comes with a fan if you’re in a hot location. I put it up in the living room at first so they could get used to it and they would kind of climb in and out of it. Or I’d go in with them and they got used to it pretty quickly. I only found out about it in November, so at that point they were 7 months old, but it’s better now than never. If you don’t have one, you have to get it right now.
I’m a big, big believer in baby wearing. My husband and I work together at our production company, so we’ve both been able to be home with the babies and get to wear them around the house. We have two of these baby carriers, and we alternate between who carries which twin. When they were really little, I put them in the more snuggly ones that you wrap around your body. But this has become my go-to now because it’s easy to get on and comfortable to wear everywhere. I vacuum with them in it, I do laundry with them in it, I wash dishes. They love it, it’s a great way to bond and also get stuff done.
Books are such an important part of our daily routine and have been since the first month of having the twins at home. We have a nice collection of books that we’ve been given or bought, and I wanted a bookcase that wouldn’t take up a whole wall and didn’t just show the spine of the books. This bookshelf is like a little carousel. It’s a really pretty way to display baby books and pique their interest as they grow older. One of the things to help them become interested in reading is to let them start choosing. So I lay out, like, five books, and they will look through them and then point to the book that they want. They love to read. My daughter, especially right now, is really into reading. I’ll read five books, and she’ll want two more or three more, and she doesn’t want to stop.
We didn’t really know as first-time parents what to expect, especially with two babies, and one being a boy and one being a girl. The tendency is to buy a lot of things, thinking we need a lot of things to stimulate them. But if anything, that can cause overstimulation and make it hard for them to concentrate on one thing. What I love about Lovevery is that it’s backed by doctors. So you get an understanding of where a baby’s brain is at that moment in time and what it is that will help them with their development. This makes it easier for us. We don’t have to do a deep dive into the research of the exact best thing for our babies right now. This just shows up and it’s easy and tailored for them. We have one subscription that the twins share. They really liked putting the silk scarf over their face and playing peekaboo. That was a big, big thing. And it was so much fun to watch when they started doing it on their own and the joy that they would get from doing it on their own. And I find that is true with all of the toys. They are spot-on with what they’re sending.
This trailer is really cool. You can pull it behind a bike or push it while running or even use it with cross-country skis. We’re really outdoorsy people, so being able to have a way to be active but not always have to hold them is a big deal. The babies can be all snuggled up in there, and they love doing it. I’m not a runner, so I don’t use it as much for that. But for cycling and skiing it’s really awesome.
This is the best double stroller I have found. We had a different one, and I don’t want to name it, I don’t want to put anyone down. But it didn’t work that great because it wasn’t side by side, and so they didn’t really get to see each other. They don’t always notice each other, but when they do, it’s so cute to see. They just look at each other and have this unique relationship. He doesn’t look at anyone else like that, not even me, his mom. He has a special love for his sister and it’s so beautiful. Being able to have them right next to each other like that is important to us because we want to support and nurture their relationship.
I feel like a lot of the ways that people feed babies are antiquated. And, yes, the idea of putting a large piece of cooked apple or chicken in front of an infant sounds scary. But actually there’s a lot of research that shows that when a baby is bringing something to their own mouth it activates their brain and prepares them to swallow safely. Whereas if you’re putting it in their mouth, the brain’s not going to send the message to their mouth to create saliva and get ready to swallow.
I used this bundle with my babies and it helped me understand what to feed them at what age and how to prepare it, like how to cut cucumber or tomatoes for a 6-month-old versus a 12-month-old. It helps you know when your baby is ready for solids and teaches you the difference between choking and gagging, so you will know if and when you need to intervene. Plus, it talks you through how to introduce allergens, which is another scary process. It’s a wonderful way to educate parents and caregivers and I don’t make a move without it.
Babies wear a diaper 24/7 and it’s the first thing that touches their body. I read that they are in a diaper for 1.8 million minutes during the whole time that they wear diapers. So when I discovered Healthy Baby and the monthly subscription that you can get, with the diapers, the wipes, and the diaper cream that is microbiome-friendly to support their sensitive skin, I was like, “I’m all about this.” I met the founder after I posted about them on my Instagram. I actually sent her this effusive email telling her how grateful I am that her products exist while my babies are small. Then we got to know each other, and she asked me if I wanted to get involved with the company, so now I’m the chief innovation officer. The diaper industry is so saturated and there is a lot of greenwashing, so it’s refreshing to see a company that is so transparent. In the subscription, you get these little cards that give you activities to do with your baby when you’re changing their diaper or giving them a bath or just playing. And I found that really helpful, like a nice little parental security blanket.
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