Shopping for Baby

The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association has a baby safety section with tips for selecting and using all sorts of products, such as cribs, strollers and changing tables. Scroll down to read up on all of them, or choose from the list of products on the right.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has several free brochures available on its site addressing many aspects of safety, such as creating a safe nursery for your baby, tips for safely shopping for baby gear and other items at thrift stores and warnings about baby rattles. To keep tabs on products you buy or receive, sign up for the recall alerts. One list is exclusively for infant and child products. 

Consumer Reports is an independent nonprofit that subjects products to extensive quality testing. In this short video, a stroller tester shows that some of the more expensive models aren’t necessarily the easiest to use. A separate release describes how some of the least expensive strollers performed the best. The crib buying guide discusses safety, value and assembly. Another section on car seats has a video on installation that suggests some best buys.

Pronto.com is a shopping site with a number of buying guides, including this one for cribs. Besides describing the different types available, this site also provides a list of its favorites, and a list of products recommended by other sites like Parents.com, as well as an explanation of what products are available in different price ranges. Other guides are devoted to strollers  and infant car seats. In the stroller guide, see what celebrities are using these days.

Parenting.com previews its book, Parenting Magazine’s Baby Must-Haves. Although essentially a plug for the book, these pages are worth a read, as they cover a variety of products including high chairs, pacifiers and strollers, and offer advice from other parents.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration introduced a new system to rate how difficult it is to install or uninstall a particular car seat; the scale goes from one to five stars, one being the most difficult, and five being the easiest. Every car seat sold in the United States has to meet federal safety regulations, but the NHTSA is trying to alleviate some frustration for parents. A three-minute video explains the ratings. NHTSA also has a searchable database of inspection stations throughout the country. At those stations, parents can make sure their car seats are installed correctly.

Discovery Health has a series of short baby gear videos, starting with this video that walks parents through baby-proofing a home, room by room. Other baby gear videos are available from the list on the right, below the baby-proofing clip. One video discusses cribs, bedding, and nursery equipment, and offers tips from experienced parents. Another illustrates how to install a car seat.

Baby Bargains has a forum where parents can write reviews of particular products. Because baby gear is a large industry, and there can be dozens of makes and models for strollers, car seats, cribs and other items, this site is probably most helpful if you have already narrowed down your selection to a couple of brands or models and want more information. Not all the products have been reviewed, but for the major brands you’ll find a decent number of reviews.

The lilaguide is a word-of-mouth site where parents post comments on a wide range of topics, such as baby products, local moms’ groups and kid-friendly restaurants. Unfortunately, the site only has reviews in 22 states, and not all cities are represented. The product reviews could be helpful to anyone though, regardless of location.

The BabyScoop is a place where parents can write and read reviews of all sorts of gear, such as maternity clothing, baby formula, and parenting books. The site is also planning to develop discussion forums and classified ads, but so far the only other feature is a blog about new baby products.

Consumer Reports has an entire section devoted to baby gear. Find expert ratings, determined through independent laboratory tests, on baby monitors, tubs, high chairs, bouncer seats, car seats and strollers. While advice for all sorts of baby gear is free, the expert rating reports are not. You can subscribe to the site for $26 a year, or get a month’s worth of access for $5.95. Consumer Reports has also published a guide to baby gear—Consumer Reports Best Baby Products—available on this site or at Amazon.

Baby Super Mall has a large selection of crib bedding, and allows you to search by gender, price and themes, and then compare the results side-by-side. There are similar filters when searching for clothes and safety gates. The other categories aren’t as extensive, though.

Mini Tots has a wide range of baby gear, including nursery furniture, monitors, strollers, swings and bedding. Overall, the site is organized and easy to navigate. However, the selection and prices can be uneven. Nursery furniture is more expensive than most other sites, and some categories have pages of products, while others have a single item.

Baby Shopping Sites was started a few years ago by a couple who had twins. This directory has links to sites organized by category, such as clothes, gear and toys. There’s even a category “Funky Sites” where you can find unique items for your baby.

Amazon has a section devoted to everything baby—here you’ll find strollers, car seats, bedding, furniture for the nursery and more.

Babies“R”Us is part of the Toys“R”Us family, and there are more than 250 stores across the United States. The stores sell everything baby related you could possibly imagine: car seats, clothes, diapers, bottles, tubs, cribs, bedding and more.

Baby Depot is part of Burlington Coat Factory, which has locations throughout the United States. Find all sorts of baby gear, such as bedding, furniture, books, music, baby toys and nursery decorations.

Target has stores throughout the United States, and features an extensive collection of baby gear.

Wal-Mart has an extensive baby section, and like its competitors, offers the option of creating a baby gift registry for expectant parents.

BizRate.com is a comparison shopping site with a section for baby gear. Once you’ve found the brand and model of the item you want, use this site to find the lowest price. BizRate also rates the sites they pull from so people have an idea of what their shopping experience could be.

The Tunes Company has a small selection of classic rock concert onesies and T-shirts for babies. Buy a onesie reprinted with the original design used to advertise Bob Marley and the Wailers at San Francisco’s Paramount Theater in 1976, or the Grateful Dead’s 1973 concert poster for the Providence Civic Center.

Polka Dot Patch has a large selection of unusual baby clothes printed with animals, sayings and other designs. Want a baby T-shirt that says “President not Princess,” or personalized blankets? This is the place. This site also has several gift baskets, or scroll down the page a bit for an extensive baby gifts section that includes categories like “Sibling Gifts” and “Organic Clothes.”

Tiny Treasures Baby has unusual baby clothing, such as an infant-sized Harley Davidson coverall and doo rag. The selection ranges from the standard Disney-printed sets to infant hats with pink skulls on them and other, racier T-shirts.

Bowery Baby is a site that prints infant T-shirts and onesies embroidered with a variety of sayings, such as “Do I look like I was born yesterday?” or “Nope, still can’t talk.” Shoppers can also create their own expression for an extra $2.

Parents.com has a slideshow of the top toys of 2007 for babies up to 12 months, as tested by a 4-month-old infant. All but one of these half dozen toys are under $25.

Oompa Toys should be one of your first stops if your instinct is to run screaming from noise-making plastic toys. They have an excellent selection of high-quality wooden toys, organic rattles, knitted dolls and much more. Search by age, brand or toy type.

Genius Babies focuses on developmental gifts. Find cloth books, flash cards, rattles, music and other toys that help stimulate babies intellectually. Prices start at $5.95. 

Rock A Bye Baby! is a company that has turned rock songs into lullabies. There are nearly two dozen albums with lullaby renditions of songs from the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Björk, U2, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and Coldplay. Click on the album covers to see what tracks are available and hear a clip. The album artwork is worth seeing, too.