I think I may have posted this one before...

jk's (reasonably short) "Must-Have list of Baby Stuff":

1) The bouncy seat with the vibrating motor. It really calmed both of my kids down, and let the younger sleep while congested. Which was pretty much every other week from November to March of his first year thanks to his big sister's preschool germ factory. Pediatricians don't like to medicate infants much at all.

2) A Baby Bjorn. Wearing a baby frees up both hands.

3) A white noise generator. We have creaky floors, and they'd wake all too often otherwise. I like the one at http://www.marpac.com/soundscreen.asp - it's tunable, natural white noise, not Smarter Image electronic white noise which irritates me. But I guess I'm a snob that way.

4) Linda Ronstadt's "Dedicated to the One I Love" lullaby cd. It includes a fresh interpretation of Queen's "We Will Rock You". And any Enya music. At 9 and 6, they still sometimes go to sleep to them.

Those four we never, ever traveled without. This fifth one was for my wife:

5) A special monitor that has a pad under the crib mattress to detect motion, including breathing. It alarms if there isn't motion for 30 seconds. SWMBO worried about SIDS and is a very light sleeper under the best of circumstances. Irrational? Perhaps, but this kept her from going to look in on them every couple hours or waking up whenever she heard an odd noise. You'll learn: babies make a lot of odd noises. Whoever coined the phrase "sleeps like a baby" didn't have "quiet" in mind. "Limp" or "angelic", perhaps, but not "quiet".

6) A crib sheet that is vinyl on the bottom and fabric on top, so that, um, "stuff" doesn't get onto or into the mattress. When they got that sick (and ours did - rarely, but they did), it's really easy to change, especially at 3 am - we'd just fold it up with all the spooge inside, put on a fresh one, and go back to sleep with fingers crossed.

7) Diaper Genie. It works.

Everything else is mostly fluff. We never used any hi-zoot bottles, just the basic Gerber Nuk stuff. My first was a pacifier kid (she slept with at least three - one in each hand and one in her mouth. She'd slowly lose them overnight; it helped to have spares. The younger is a stuffed animal kid. "Puppy" was one of his first words, though we've long since called his favorite one "Stinky Puppy". With cause. (Note: get machine washable stuffed animals!)

Don't know if the list will help you (or anyone else), but I thought I'd toss it out there.

-jk