Baby Gear & Gift Registry for 2nd Baby

Taken @ 16 weeks. Just starting to pop out a little.

We will have a 7 year gap between our "babies". I can't believe that Zachariah will be 7 years old when this baby is due to be born. This was not the plan, but it's reality. We have a big gap.

The problem with having a big gap between children is that we've either gotten rid of baby gear or it is too out of date to use. We have some things, but we were missing some really big imporatant items. We got rid of our crib, infant seat, and car seat just a year ago. I realize now that the car seat would have been ready to expire by now anyway, so we needed a new one.

We found a car seat/stroller travel system at a local home improvement store. They don't often carry things like this, so there was one left that kept getting marked down. We checked it out and it was a decent one that would work for us. When Matt bought it, we ended up with a great price plus a $20 rebate. Score!

Last weekend we picked out and bought a crib from Target. Nothing fancy, but it's nice (probably nicer than the old one was new). And Matt had a $100 gift card from a prize he won that we used towards it. I also had a few Target gift cards (from various blogging things), so with all of those combined we paid VERY little for the crib. Yay!

Now that we have the crib and car seat/stroller, there isn't a lot more we need. I kept our bouncy seat, play mat, pack 'n play, baby bathtub, and a few other things that I used with my nephews/niece.

I think the obvious thing would be clothing...but only if it's a girl. I still have all my boy clothes. My sister has been borrowing them as needed, but she never needed things until about 12 months or so. So most of the little baby clothes haven't been worn since Zachariah was little. If this is a girl, we'll have to start over with most clothing.

The other major thing we will need are diapers. We've decided to cloth diaper this time. This is all new to me, so we're starting from scratch. I haven't decided exactly what type(s) I want to use yet. But I see that Amazon.com has some available there.

And that brings me to baby gift registry. I feel a little funny doing a registry since this is our 2nd baby, but I know there will be at least one big shower for my family/friends. Since I already have quite a bit (more than I originally thought), I think it might be necessary to register for what we actually do need. I'm thinking of setting up a registry on Amazon and maybe Babies R Us. Mostly on Amazon for the cloth diapers I can register for.

What do you think? Is a registry acceptable for a 2nd baby? Did you do it? Does it make a difference that there is a big age gap?

And I'm still working through what other baby gear I need. It can be overwhelming, but at least I've done this before and know where to look. What baby items are must haves for you?

16 Week Update

I know it's been a while since I updated. Sorry. After talking to Sarah (she has the cutest little baby, by the way) for a while on Sunday, I figured I better update how I'm doing. (She said she had to stalk me on Twitter to make sure I was still doing OK. Which works because I post there A LOT! Ha!)

I will be 16 weeks pregnant on Thursday. I had my 16 week check up with my OB today. It was a quick, easy, and good appointment. We went over some general questions, talked about getting enough calcium in my diet, and listened for the baby's heartbeat. The LPN we saw gave me this whole speech about how for some reason she finds it very hard to hear heartbeats at 16 weeks. She speculates it's something to do with the growing uterus and small baby. As she finishes telling me this, just in case she can't find the heartbeat, she finds the heartbeat. Well, that was easy. It was so good to hear our little baby again. The heartbeat was around 142 this time. (Last time it was 180, so quite a difference.)

I have been feeling better overall, but I am still dealing with nausea and vomiting (once in a while). No fun. I tried to stop taking the Zofran, because I was feeling better. I quickly learned that I'm not ready to stop taking that. I have a lot less vomiting when I'm taking it...still, unfortunately.

The same week I stopped taking the medicine for a few days, I had some other bad issues too. I ended up with a terrible yeast infection. I've only had 1, maybe 2, ever, and this was terrible. I used the recommended treatment from my OB office, and it started clearing up within a few days. That was a rough few days.

While that was clearing up, I had to up the medication I'm taking to keep my blood sugar levels good. They told me to do it gradually, so that's what I've been doing. When I increased it, I started having diarrhea  That lasted for about 3 days off and on all day. I had to try hard to keep some food down and get lots of liquid. No fun.

What a bad week that was. I'm glad to be past all of that. And it helps to have great friends to listen to me complain and send fun care packages to cheer me up. Thanks, Sara! I can also thank Sara for my newest craving- Jolly Ranchers. They are good to have especially when I'm feeling a bit nauseous.

15 going into 16 weeks is starting to look better for me. I have more energy to get things done, and I'm glad I'm not feeling down all the time. Looking back I can see time is passing quickly already with this pregnancy. Only 4 more weeks and I'll be half way there. I want to treasure each moment, like the little flutters I'm just starting to feel.