What to Put on Your Baby Registry for a Second Child

It’s so much easier to make a baby registry for your first child than your second. This is what I found, at least!

To start out, I asked around my friends for ideas and recommendations. A lot of my mom friends drew total blanks when it came to picking things to put on a second baby registry! So, I had to do some intense thinking.

In this list, see what I came up with after finding what was right, and what I’ll be putting on my baby registry for my second baby!

Postpartum products for YOU

I’ll be recovering from birth just like when I had my first baby, when my second baby comes. There’s no avoiding that!

I’m probably in the minority: I saved as much of my postpartum supplies as I could (not considering if they have expiration dates—hmm). For any mamas who used them all up or passed them on (the clean stuff) to friends or family, you’ll probably need new postpartum recovery supplies. Cue the baby registry!

My essentials include my Frida Peri Bottle, Witch hazel pads, Dermoplast, tons of pads, disposable underwear and more. Amazon does a good job of rounding up all the necessary postpartum essentials for more ideas to put on your registry.

Stroller adapters (for expansion options)

This is one of the first things that popped into my and Dan’s minds when we thought, “What goes on a baby registry for the SECOND baby?” But yes, alas: stroller adapters, to turn our UPPABaby Vista stroller into a double stroller for two.

Of course, not everyone has an UPPAbaby stroller (although I must say, they are absolutely ubiquitous where we live). But in regard to which stroller you have, look up the “expansion” options for how your stroller “expands” from holding one child, to two.

Our stroller allows for holding both a bassinet and a toddler seat at the same time, so the UPPAbaby stroller adapters are on our second child’s baby registry to make room for both of these kids in our stroller!

Another sound machine

It’s always good to have more sound machines, especially if you plan to start your newborn on a sleep routine with one before your older child outgrows his or hers. We definitely plan to be using a sound machine for each child, so that means we need TWO!

While we have the Hatch Rest+ for our first child, we’re exploring more sound machines. We landed on the one from Slumberpod for our second child, and we review it at our SlumberCalm sound machine review.

Sustainable baby products

I don’t know about you, but with my first baby, I was baffled by how many products were disposable and created waste. Disposable nipple pads? I went with the fabric ones I could wash a thousand times. Diapers and wipes though? It got trickier.

For my first child, I didn’t want to do things wrong, you know? I got Huggies and Pampers and run-of-the-mill brands we’ve all heard of. One thing I recommend doing for the second baby registry is, if you want to “up” your taste in things like diapers, is to check out sustainable diaper brands and list those as desired gifts.

Brands like DYPER, which I nitpicked in my DYPER brand diaper review and HONEST brand, which I tried with my first child and really liked the quality, make great choices and registry additions.

Second diaper pail

As my two children will be close in age, practically two years apart, we’ll have two kids in diapers at the same time. This calls for two diaper pails, like the Ubbi or the famous Diaper Genie.

If you already have a second diaper pail, there’s never a bad time to add diaper pail refill bags to your second baby registry. That’s what we’ll be doing!

Fresh burp cloths

After a year or two of burp cloths for your first child, you may find that they’re stained, ratty or just not nice to look at. Getting a fresh pack of burp cloths on your baby registry, especially high-quality ones, is worth it. It’s really worth it if you wind up with a baby who’s a big spitter!

(In our case, burp cloths came with us everywhere (even on a trip to Mexico!) in our child’s first 20 months, and we used them to wipe down swings after rainstorms, and more. Some of them even have black stains from playground dirt—ew!)

Baby products that “get used up”

While we have piles of baby clothing stored away for a second child, what we don’t have is newborn-sized diapers, wipes and sensitive diaper cream. We need all these things for a newborn, and putting them on our second child’s baby registry is a perfect idea!

I think that anyone who has already had a second child will realize that these things are essentials, even though they’re not glamorous as baby gifts. They’re so important for things a newborn really needs, that sensible parents who gift them will be very appreciated.

A new baby carrier for Baby #2

After receiving so much as hand-me-downs and spending my maternity leave figuring out what I liked and what I wanted to move on from, I have grand ideas for my second child and which products are going to be foolproof.

Something like a baby carrier is a huge need, especially if I already have a toddler running around. These days, when I go to the playground, I admire the moms who have a newborn strapped into a baby carrier and are also pushing their toddlers or little ones on the swings!

A newborn carrier I want is the BabyBjorn Carrier Mini. This is because with our first child, we started off with an older version of it, and I eventually gave it to a neighbor when it got outgrown. Getting a brand new one will make sure that we have the latest safety requirements built into it, and the most current style! So it’s going on my second child’s baby registry.

Dual baby monitor

I didn’t know this type of product existed until we visited my sister and we put both our toddlers down for naps. My sister and my brother-in-law already had a dual baby monitor that they got on their FIRST baby registry, in preparation for a future life with two kids.

Not everyone is this savvy, though, so this remains one of the BEST gifts to register for when you’re having a second child. The best-seller currently stands as the one from Hello Baby.

Products for a baby of a different sex

Our daughter has a lot of “girly” stuff, and I think it’s adorable. But that stuff is probably not for our second baby (a boy!).

You might want to get things like crib sheets, outerwear or some clothes if you want to have your child not in his older sister’s pink frilly hand-me-downs (or vice versa).

Season-specific baby clothing

Our first child was a “winter baby” and that involved very tiny snowsuits in Newborn size, as well as an assortment of footed onesies that she wore from December to APRIL! Our second child will be born in the spring, which means there may be a need for newborn-sized apparel for a warmer season!

Consider things like if your child will be 6 months and ready to swim in the swimming pool by summer, that bathing suits and swim diapers will be good to register for, and have on-hand for that first hot summer day. Or, having an appropriately-sized winter suit will be brilliant when you want to take walks with the bassinet.

Breastfeeding essentials (fresh ones)

There are loads of breastfeeding essentials from my baby registry that I kept around because they don’t get “used up” or “expire.” But there are other products that (unfortunately) are single-use and need to be replaced for a new baby. These include things like breastmilk storage bags, nipple cream that gets used up.

I suggest weeding through my list of breastfeeding essentials for a baby registry and seeing which ones could make your life easier this time around.

Bath-time products and lotions

Your older child may already be into “big kid shampoo” for bath time (LOREAL fish-shaped shampoo bottles, anyone? I liked those as a kid), so your newborn will need sensitive newborn soaps, washes and lotions!

A few favorites of mine are Johnson & Johnson Newborn Wash and Cerave Baby Bath.

Medicine

If your older child is over two and no longer using “infant” medicine, a really smart idea for a second child baby registry is to put on some infant-specific medicines and health remedies like Infant Motrin, Mylicon drops, saline drops and other things that may have expired from when your older child was under 12 months.

A favorite from my first baby registry was a newborn remedies gift package, which set us up for having most remedies on-hand in the middle of the night and in the dead of winter when we really needed it all! Try this one: Mommy’s Bliss Gift Set.

Car seat

You probably learned when you had your first child (like I did!) that car seats “expire.” Typically, car seats “expire” 6 to 10 years after they’re manufactured. If you have a longer age gap between the first and second child, it may be occurring to you just now that your infant car seat may have hit the end of its lifespan and needs to be traded in!

A new baby keepsake book for Baby #2

I was embarrassingly late to starting baby journaling for our first child, but I did start a first and second journal with the childhood journal from Promptly Journals. For my second child, I think a baby book with a built-in calendar or photo album would be nice, as I don’t want the second child to feel less important than the first!

Baby and child stuff for traveling

If you know you’ll be taking vacations now with two kids (whoa), then it is time to optimize. We took a trip when I first got pregnant, and chose to start investing in some baby travel products that my friends made fun of me for, but I promised to us we’d get great use out of them by having another kid over time.

One of them is something I highly recommend, just as an example: a travel baby and toddler bathtub! See more about it and how our maiden voyage with it went, at the Munchkin travel duck tub review. See if it may make sense to add a product like this to your second child’s baby registry, or simply, an extra travel crib (like our Guava Lotus).

“Older sibling” books for your older child

While children under 21 months or so might not grasp the responsibilities of becoming an older sibling, children 2 and over should “get it.” And books can help with that!

Once a new baby has entered your family life, there is a lot of adjusting to do. Books with “older brother,” “older sister” and “new baby in our family” topics are great for bedtime stories, and help to prioritize your older child, who will be seeking attention during the transition.

How I came up with this list

If you’ve been reading the rest of my parenting advice, you’ll know that I’m highly practical! I’m not obsessed with expensive baby brands or fancy luxe sleep sacks, and I’m happier to get a ton of baby stuff for free through some hard work.

When it comes to my second child, I look around and feel like I have everything. Or, I feel like I should have everything already from my first child, right? It may not be so.

In making this list, I thought hard about what would be genuinely useful after my second baby comes, and which things on a registry would be really nice to have. They’re also things that I’m probably not going to sit down and buy until I need them, so receiving them as gifts is perfect as I bring home a newborn for a second time.