When you have a baby, every product is a baby product.

We are parents just like you, wanting the best for our kids. We are also over-analyzers, over-researchers, and big fans of the Internet. Every time we need to buy something child-related (or just house relates for that matter), we end up searching for “The Best” object we could find. I put “The Best” in quotes because for every item, there’s a new definition of what is “The Best” - this site is a collection of what worked best for us at the time, and we’ll try to be clear and specify what we thought was “The Best” for each particular item. The result is that the products listed on this site are “pretty good” - there’s no “Best” in baby gear since it is context, situation, family, and baby dependent. But, we think, these products are “pretty good”. Because many hours go into this research, we want others to benefit from it as well. Please enjoy our recommendations for pretty good baby gear. If you don’t find something specific you are looking for, send us an email at prettygoodbabygear@gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do; no guarantees, though!

Parenting is filled with choices, many of which are dogmatically followed. We’re no different; some choices we make (disposable diapers for instance) will be choices you disagree on to your very core. That’s ok! If you disagree with the premise of why we bought a product in the first place, just ignore that particular post. We’re not here to convince anyone that our parenting choices are the only way to parent - this is just a collection of products we’ve spent time researching since they fit with our lives and choices.

For us the criteria for choosing products related to babies is fluid based on the options available, but broadly speaking follow these tenets:

  • Physically safe. This one is broad and open to interpretation, also varied with age. But for example tiny magnets for a 6 month old are a NO. Sharp edges, pokeability, etc, all fall under this bucket.
  • No known toxins. There are some things that are known carcinogenic materials (e.g. lead) or endocrine disruptors (e.g. BPA) that we try to avoid whenever possible. This of course is hard to completely achieve since there is a lot that we don’t know. But we do our best. Things we specifically try to avoid are BPA, phthalates, and lead.
  • Sustainable. When buying new, we try to avoid plastic when possible. Wood, metal, cotton, etc. are preferred: we love our planet and hope our kids can enjoy it for a long time. In our day to day purchases we try to buy used whenever possible, since especially for baby gear the useful time period is so small. But we all know that sometimes this isn’t possible and you need to buy something new to guarantee that you have it when you need it!
  • Direct buying. When possible, we prefer to buy directly from the manufacturer or company producing the object. This way, more of our hard-earned dollars go to the company we want to support rather than the middleman, reseller, or shipper. It also guarantees that we get the product we’re looking for, rather than a drop-shipped knockoff. We apply this to any affiliate links as well: when possible the affiliate links and deals go directly to the company website. If a company (from their website) links to their Amazon store, we consider those links OK too. Read more in our full advertising disclosure.
  • Practical. The thing we are trying to buy should actually solve the problem we’re trying to solve. Sometimes this means we compromise on one of the other tenets, and that’s ok.

We want to share our research with you, since we did all this work anyway! If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please let us know by sending an email to prettygoodbabygear@gmail.com.