Episode 10 - The Checklist Conundrum: Navigating Baby Registry Checklists
Presented by Pabbot and THE BABY GEAR GAME PLAN
Shownotes
In this episode of "BRB Ep010 - The Checklist Conundrum," Kevin and Paris dive into the intricacies of baby registry checklists. They explore the benefits and pitfalls of using these checklists to prepare for a new baby and offer practical advice to make the process more efficient and less overwhelming.
Key Points Discussed:
The Popular Whale Bathtub:
Kevin and Paris discuss the popularity of the whale bathtub. While it is a cute and decent product, it may not be essential for everyone. The couple emphasizes that checklists often include items that may not fit every family's needs or style.
Benefits of Baby Registry Checklists:
Kevin outlines three primary benefits of using baby registry checklists:
They help you get started with baby gear.
They provide a snapshot of options by category and item type.
They highlight typical items that people want or need for their baby.
Raising Questions and Research:
Paris points out that checklists can prompt questions about why certain items are not included. This can be an opportunity for parents to research and understand whether they need those items.
Lack of Customization:
Kevin and Paris argue that baby registry checklists often lack customization for personal needs. Essentials listed on these checklists may not be essential for everyone. For example, socks might be listed as essential, but they may not be necessary for a baby in a warm climate.
Duplicate Functions:
The couple discusses how checklists can lead to redundancy. For example, a baby swing and a bouncer serve similar functions, and parents might not need both. Kevin and Paris advise choosing items that serve multiple purposes to avoid unnecessary duplicates.
Overwhelm and Overspending:
Checklists can lead to overwhelm by making parents feel they need to buy unnecessary items. This can result in overspending and clutter. Paris and Kevin suggest focusing on truly essential items and considering alternatives like a diaper fund instead of redundant baby gear.
Gamification and False Sense of Completion:
Kevin criticizes the gamification of checklists, where completing the list might not lead to a beneficial outcome for the family. He emphasizes that hitting 100% on the checklist is not the goal and can lead to unnecessary purchases.
Practical Tips for Using Checklists:
Identify items you don't need to register for, such as those you might inherit or that don't fit your lifestyle.
Take a tactical approach to planning baby gear based on actual needs and milestones.
Use the nursery and decor section for your own purchases or close family and friends, not for the baby shower.
Print off your registry to get a clear overview and avoid duplicates.
Keep your registry organized and have someone you trust review it.
Focus on items you truly need and promote practical gifts like a diaper fund.
Final Thoughts:
Kevin and Paris conclude by reiterating the importance of using baby registry checklists as a guide but not relying on them too heavily. They stress the value of customizing the registry to fit personal needs and avoiding the pitfalls of unnecessary purchases.
Call to Action:
If you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and let us know what you think in the comments if you're watching on YouTube. For more personalized advice, consider scheduling a consultation call with us.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of "BRB Ep010 - The Checklist Conundrum." Good luck with your baby registry planning, and we'll talk to you later!
Highlights
[00:08:00] - "Or things you might end up getting instead of getting things that you need."
[00:09:00] - "Footie body suits might not be an essential for someone who has a baby in Florida in the middle of summer."
[00:10:00] - "They're a baby container. That's what they are."
[00:11:00] - "They can really lead to overwhelm because now you think you have to shop for all these different items that you don't even need half of them."
[00:12:00] - "Even if you're getting something as a gift, there can be a cost in getting a bunch of things you don't need."
[00:13:00] - "If you actually went through and you completed any of these checklists, you would be in a world of hurt."
[00:14:00] - "What ends up happening is if you don't complete it, first time parents end up feeling like, uh oh, we're missing stuff."
[00:15:00] - "That is actually a probably a really high return on investment activity."
[00:16:00] - "Take a tactical approach to planning your baby gear."
[00:17:00] - "You are going to be so upset if you have to deal with that or don't get your crib or something and you're 36 weeks pregnant."
[00:18:00] - "It is a lot more helpful to see all of your items."
[00:19:00] - "Have someone that you trust review it and take a look at it before you send it out to everybody."
[00:20:00] - "Focus on the items that you want, the way that you see this going once baby arrives, and then promote the diaper fund."
[00:21:00] - "The advice is to not lean on it too much."
Transcript
[00:00:00]
Kevin: I think maybe the Amazon baby registry is a little worse about this than the baby baby list did do a better job of, not creating that kind of
Paris: Don't register for those things. People will give you so many that they'll be coming out your ears
Kevin: we see with the baby registry checklist is that there's really a lack of
Paris: in some ways is really helpful and is nice to have and in other ways is not great, especially for first time parents.
Kevin: they've designed a game that you can't win, or at least if you win it, you're going to
Paris: It irritates me so much.
Kevin: Welcome to Baby Registry Breakdown.
Paris: I'm Paris Scott.
Kevin: I'm Kevin Scott and today we are talking about Baby Registry Checklist, which is, it seems super important and It can really help you, but it can also really throw you off.
If you're just starting your baby registry, if you're thinking about using a baby registry sometime in the future, or if you just want to check us for accuracy, this is the episode for you. Let's go we're talking about the checklists that are actually built into the Baby Registry platforms, like [00:01:00] the BabyList checklist and the Amazon Registry checklist. BabyList, they just changed up their UI. They've got, this new checklist that's front and center has a progress tracker that shows right at the top of your registry as you're building it, but you have to be really careful with it because it can definitely take you into territory where you're buying things that you don't need, trying to win the game. Ai Because that, the Amazon checklist is pretty prominent and it really encourages you to go through it as your way of building the registry and the Amazon checklist has a lot of the same problems.
Paris: Yes, yeah, that's for sure. I know when we started building our registry, I was going back and forth to Amazon to look at their checklist and, go through it and then add things to baby list.
I assume that's A lot of people were doing that. So they've added their own, which in some ways is really helpful and is nice to have and in other ways is not [00:02:00] great, especially for first time parents.
Kevin: Let's just start out by covering a little bit of what the built in checklists do, and they're designed to help parents remember and organize all the essentials that they'll need for their new baby,
and they're a pre made list, and they're organized by category in each item. is checked off as you add that to your registry. Um, if you click on the items in the checklist, you'll get suggestions for items that you can add in that category. And they have progress tracking both overall, for the babylist checklist they have progress tracking for essentials, and they have progress tracking by category.
At least in terms of, they're going to show you how many items you've checked off out of the total total.
One of the main ways that they're helpful is they just get you started. So if you have no idea what goes on a baby registry, that checklist, when you start to work through it, you'll get some idea of the types of things that should go on a baby registry and what categories they belong in.[00:03:00]
Paris: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. They help you know basically what a baby would need. If people have offered you baby things that they don't use anymore or don't need, and you're like, I don't know if we need that.
I don't know if a baby needs that. Well, now, you know, ,
Kevin: yeah. But I mean, the problem is, is that they do give you. Everything a baby could possibly need, almost. I mean, these checklists, at least in terms of BabyList and Amazon, they're incredibly extensive.
Paris: They're for everyone, but everyone's needs are included in them.
So that doesn't mean that you need everything.
They do give you a basic snapshot of what the different options are by category, which is nice, both in terms of the types of items and also, products that belong to those types of items.
Kevin: Obviously that's typically going to be stuff that they want to feature,
Paris: they do a fairly good job of listing the things that, are some of the most popular [00:04:00] items,
Kevin: or, or their BabyList exclusives. A lot of times if it's a popular product, then it's going to be, not a lot of times, but sometimes when it's a popular product, it's going to be that product, but it's the BabyList exclusive.
Paris: Yeah. Yeah. I would say that if something is really popular but it's not necessarily the most stylish or fits with their style, the style of BabyList, then they may not feature it. So keep that in mind.
Kevin: Yeah. But I think everyone's going to have one of these whale bathtubs.
No matter what you answer on the interview questions, you're going to end up with a whale bathtub, the
Paris: whale bathtub actually is kind of cute and people really like it. It, it actually is a decent product.
It's just kind of bulky.
Kevin: There's three things that are helpful about the checklist. They get you started, they give you some basic snapshot of options by category and by item type. Um, they basically show you the typical things that people want or need for their baby and that, you know, it's everybody.
You were talking about, they can [00:05:00] raise questions for you on why items aren't there and Get your antenna up
Paris: yeah, if you're going into this and you don't know much about babies, you might be looking at these categories and you're like, well, hey, where's the crib bumper?
Or where's the, uh, mosquito net topper thing for the crib? Or, um, whatever. Well, there might be a reason why those aren't on there. It's a good thing to then, research those products. Maybe there's a reason that they're not on there. Maybe there's not, but either way, I think it's a good idea to, to research the things that aren't on there.
Kevin: So if we go back to episode, uh, I think it was episode two, where we were talking about when we built the twin registry and our criticism of that registry from our standpoint now, was that it was incomplete. Do you think if you would have had a tool like this, the checklist built in that would have helped with that problem?
You know, I was kind of going on Amazon registry, uh, yeah, [00:06:00] that, that checklist and
Paris: I was going on, what do babies need? Not necessarily understanding milestones related to, um, Um, like development, like playmats and things like that, you know,
Kevin: right. It wasn't tactical around milestones. Like most of our baby gear planning is now.
Paris: Those are the main places where we were lacking.
Kevin: Yeah.
Paris: Um, we, we got lucky though because, some of our family members and friends recognized that and they went and, purchased things for us that we didn't know that we needed. Or I purposefully didn't add because I didn't think it was necessary because I didn't know anything about babies.
Kevin: But those were things that were coming around the corner that if you would have been thinking a little bit longer term, then you could have planned.
Paris: If we weren't on such a tight budget, I was trying to cut out everything that I could [00:07:00] possibly cut out. Um, I think it probably would have been different.
Or even if we were having a singleton, I think it would have been different.
Kevin: Right. You were trying to keep it reined in.
Paris: Yes.
Kevin: Obviously there's a lot of benefits to using a baby registry checklist.
Let's get into some of the reasons that baby registry baby registry checklist are problematic.
The registry checklists are for everyone. It's kind of like if you, if you are cooking and you have all the ingredients in the kitchen and no recipe.
Kevin: Right, part of the recipe is having the right ingredients.
Paris: Exactly, exactly. You don't need everything in your kitchen.
Kevin: So that's a really good analogy, because when you're talking about the recipe, you're actually talking about, again, those tactics, those strategies when it comes to parenting and caring for the baby.
And then it's having those things that you need to do that. Well, if you just have everything, then you're going to have stuff that you're never going to use, that you're just going to have to end up reselling, returning.
Paris: Things that are redundant, even.
Kevin: Or things you might [00:08:00] end up getting instead of getting things that you need.
Paris: Of course, everyone's gonna end up with things that they don't use or don't need. It happens. But this is, you know, thinking about it in this way, where you don't need everything in the kitchen for one recipe, um, will help you kind of filter out the things that you don't need. Or see that some things are redundant.
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Kevin: The second thing that we see with the baby registry checklist is that there's really a lack of customization for personal needs.
I think the biggest example of this is that the essentials, they, they lack context. It's an essential for somebody, but it may not be an essential for you
Paris: yes. Some of the essentials that I have seen on the new baby list essentials checklist, not everyone needs those things. Like socks, for instance. That's true. That's
Kevin: true.
Paris: If you need socks, you can go get socks. Socks are
Kevin: Not essential.
Paris: No. I mean, unless you live somewhere where it's very cold all the time, you probably do want socks. Footie [00:09:00] body suits might not be an essential for someone who has a baby in Florida in the middle of summer.
Kevin: Mm hmm.
Paris: Those things aren't Essential.
Kevin: Yeah to me. I see when I look at the essentials on here I see just a lot of Duplicates but not duplicate items and this is really the theme It's duplicate function.
Paris: Yes.
Kevin: So you might have one item that does one thing perfectly fine, can do it for you all the time. And then you're going to have another item, which essentially the function is that exact same thing.
Paris: This can get kind of tricky, honestly, because they have things like. A baby swing, and a bouncer. Well, you, you really don't need both of those. Mm hmm. Just choose one of those things. You might not know that, though, when you are a first time parent. You might think, okay, those are two completely different things.
They're not really. They're a baby container. That's what they are.
Yeah, the booties, the bodysuits, the footies, the hats, the pants, the socks, all of those are not correct!
Kevin: Wrong! The [00:10:00] clothing, well there's no essentials in the play category, so there you go.
Paris: Yeah, well they shouldn't have had any of those things as essentials. Or they should have made the categories more broad.
Kevin: I love that the bathtub too is the whale bathtub on the picture. Yeah, of
Paris: course
Kevin: it would
Paris: be. Also the towels, we talked about baby towels over and over again. Right, definitely
Kevin: not essential.
Paris: They, well, they are essential. You need the, but
Kevin: not, not the baby towel specifically.
Paris: No, not we
Kevin: a towel, but not the baby towels.
Paris: For real. You do not need the baby to have a hood on their towel.
Kevin: The third problem with the baby registry checklist is that they're almost designed to lead to duplicates at least duplicate function. Of items, I honestly, I think maybe the Amazon baby registry is a little worse about this than the baby baby list did do a better job of, not creating that kind of overlap quite as much.
Paris: Honestly, they have so much stuff. Both of both of these have so much stuff on them that don't belong on a registry at all.
Kevin: Yeah.
Paris: Which [00:11:00] makes me so irritated. It irritates me so much.
Kevin: Right. And that brings us to the next issue with these baby registry checklists.
They can really lead to overwhelm because now you think you have to shop for all these different items that you don't even need half of them.
Paris: No.
Kevin: So
Paris: probably more than half actually.
Kevin: At the very least, you have to figure out, well, why don't I need this?
Even if you're ultimately not going to register for it, you're trying to figure out why you don't need to register for it. And that can be a whole thing. Every one of those can be a rabbit hole.
Paris: Another thing is, there are, like, kind of go to gifts that people like to give you.
Like, people like to give, books. They like to give plushy toys. They like to give things like, um, baby blankets. Don't register for those things. People will give you so many that they'll be coming out your ears.
Kevin: So not only overwhelmed, but the, and that's the whole idea is that you're going to put things on there that you normally wouldn't put on there that you wouldn't think about that you don't [00:12:00] necessarily need, but now you're just trying to check it off the list. It goes on there and whether you're buying it for yourself or someone's buying it off your registry, it's just, flat out overspending.
Even if you're getting something as a gift, there can be a cost in getting a bunch of things you don't need. And typically that cost is going to be having to return it, having to store it, having to move it around, taking time to resell it, At the worst possible time when you're trying to take care of a newborn.
There's a cost. Where you would rather have those resources go is to something like a diaper fund, which is actually useful. Absolutely. Rather than some, like, travel system you don't need because you checked off the stroller and you checked off the infant car seat.
Paris: And the wagon.
Kevin: The last problem I want to mention with the baby registry checklist, and this really bothers me as a designer, is that they've designed a game that you can't win, or at least if you win it, you're going to lose in real life.
If you're going to have like a progress check, the destination should [00:13:00] be a place that leaves your customer in a really good spot. And I think if you actually went through and you completed any of these checklists, you would be in a world of hurt.
You really have to be careful when it comes to gamifying a baby registry, right? It's kind of a d*ck move, honestly.
Paris: Yeah.
Kevin: If the outcome isn't something that leads to, benefits for the parent, for the family, for the baby.
Paris: Yeah. Well, what, what ends up happening is if you don't complete it, you know, uh, first time parents end up feeling like, uh oh, we're missing stuff. We're going to be, we're not going to be prepared. So a feeling of just being unprepared, whereas, um, vice versa. When you have checked everything off, have everything on there, that's too much stuff, you don't need all of it.
Plus, not everybody gets all of that stuff. There's stuff that needs to take priority. And if you don't end up getting [00:14:00] everything on your registry, you also might be unprepared.
Kevin: Right.
Paris: So it really truly is a lose lose situation. So it
Kevin: really truly is a lose
Paris: lose situation.
Kevin: Yeah, you don't want to hit 100%.
Paris: No. No,
Kevin: you
Paris: don't.
Kevin: If you're starting your registry, if you're starting your registry on BabyList, if you're starting your registry on Amazon, and you're going through the checklist, you heard it here, you do not want to hit 100%. That is going to be a problem for you, more than likely. The
Paris: only way you should hit 100 percent is if you check it off because you don't need it.
You can do it on both Amazon or BabyList. You can go through and check off on your checklist the things that you don't need or you're going to get from someone else or you already have, all of those things.
You can just check them right off. And then you don't have to worry about it.
Kevin: Yeah, just do that right away. That's something I'm totally fine doing on a consultation call. Absolutely. Just talk through like, a little bit about your life and then while we're on the phone you just go through and you Check off those items that you know you don't need based on that conversation.
That is actually [00:15:00] a Probably a really high return on investment activity. Yeah when it comes to baby registry,
Paris: absolutely
Kevin: Here's our tips for working with baby registry checklist and what to watch out for. So the first thing, identify items that you don't need to register for. We just talked about that. Maybe you inherit an item. Um, some items aren't going to fit in your overall strategy.
Just go ahead and check those right away, and if you don't have any clue about what those items are, then schedule a call with us and we can just go through it on the phone. I think the biggest thing here, beyond any sort of checklist.
It's the way we approach it. Take a tactical approach to planning your baby gear. Like think about like what you're actually going to be doing, how you want to go through the process of baby care through that first year, looking at the milestones and then pick your baby gear accordingly.
I know that's super, super hard to do if you're going in blind, [00:16:00] but it's really the best way and it's really going to get you the most, the most bang for the buck in terms of your baby gear selections.
Paris: Here's, here's also a little bit of advice about, um, the registry check checklist. Uh, when you do start your registry, just know that the nursery and decor section is for you and your closest family members and friends.
You want to get the necessities out of those things like cribs and, um, bass nets and things like that, all of that furniture and stuff. That's not for your baby shower. That is for you to get. yourself or, you know, a family member if they want to help you, or a friend, you are going to be so upset if you have to deal with that or don't get your crib or something and you're 36 weeks pregnant.
Trust me, you don't want to be there. Yeah. So just know that all of that nursery decor section is, is just for you. The only, I think the only exception that I would make on that is maybe for [00:17:00] like one piece of Wall decor, something just to like give people a little hint of what your style is or what the theme is.
Just kind of guide them in the right direction. Don't assume that you're going to get that though. But, you could put that on there, why not?
Kevin: One way of helping you Keep from getting items with a bunch of duplicated function, if not duplicate items is to actually print off your registry.
It doesn't have to necessarily be on paper, but print it like onto a media , if you're just talking about the early stages, you can even print out the checklist. Baby list makes that checklist really easy to download manually mark off what you don't need in advance, and that can really be helpful. The other thing that helps you do, especially when you're, when you can just get it into like a plain text list of everything that you have is you can see everything together because when you're going through any of these registries, like the [00:18:00] spacing is so much where you're only seeing like three or four items at a time.
I'm just going to pull up. baby, uh, baby list here. Yeah. You're going to maybe get three items at once and Amazon isn't all that different.
Yeah. Three items. So I think that's really by design that you're seeing three items at a time. And it is a lot more helpful to see all of your items. You can almost get it on a page and a half, two pages, most, at most, when each one is just a line. So, that really helps you get a better overview of your registry
Another tip, keep your registry organized. Yeah. And that's really going to help you understand. What you have and be able to sort of compete against the checklist when it gets to that point, because you're like, no, no, no, no, I already understand. I have this in this category. It's doing this. It doesn't matter that I have 5 of 7 items checked off or 7 of 7 items checked off.
Paris: Don't have too much clutter in there as far as [00:19:00] I'm concerned.
Kevin: Another thing I would recommend doing before you send out your baby registry is Have someone that you trust review it and take a look at it before you send it out to everybody.
Especially if that person has experience with babies and knows, and is a parent, that is helpful because then they can see it and go, Oh, why would you have this and this? And even if, even if you're going to disagree with them on some things, like at least they can give you that perspective and raise some questions for you.
Paris: Or they could be like, Oh, I see that you have this, but you know what? You're also going to need that.
Kevin: Right.
Paris: Helpful. That is helpful.
Your friends, I'm sure have lots and lots of, um, opinions about what you need . Yeah. Take things with a grain of salt, do your own research.
Kevin: Right.
Yeah. But it can help you find some blind spots for sure. Oh,
Paris: absolutely. Yeah. Listen, listen, hear them.
Kevin: Focus on the items that you want, the way that, the way that you see this going once baby arrives, and then promote the diaper fund. Don't feel like you need a gazillion, billion items.
I mean, maybe that's your approach. Maybe you have [00:20:00] a more like scattershot approach. Next week we're actually going to talk about some different, strategies, big sort of conceptual strategies when it comes to building a baby registry. Um, we obviously both have our go tos, but we're going to talk about some different ways that you can approach it.
In summary, when it comes to the baby registry checklist. Use the checklist, but then, follow our tips to make them more useful and avoid some pain for yourself in the future you can always Schedule a call with us and we can help you work through some of these things initially and probably save you a ton of time
Paris: I just wanted to say that, um, we'd like baby list. We use it all the time. We like Amazon. We like the, those checklists are great. Like we said, it's great to have, you know, some structure, um, and to give you some good ideas of. What you need.
Kevin: This is a case where we are picking on some of our favorite, but baby registry platform.
They're great.
They're so easy to use. Yeah. The checklist is helpful to a point. Yeah.
Paris: We're not saying don't use it.
Kevin: The advice is to not lean on it too much.
Paris: Exactly.
Kevin: [00:21:00] And to just let you know where it can lead you astray. And also, you know, I think it is the way these are designed. It is worth a little bit of criticism.
Paris: Absolutely.
Kevin: This being our 10th episode, show us some love. I didn't want to say this kind of stuff before when it was like super early. Cause like, what if we quit? Because like very few podcasts make it to 10 episodes, ridiculously low number. Uh, but we're doing this and we have a lot more episodes planned.
And that would just mean a ton to us. If you could go to Apple podcast or Spotify where you listen and leave a review. And if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment and let us know what you think. That's it for today's episode. Definitely be careful when you're starting your baby registry and you're using those checklists.
Thank you so much.
Paris: Good luck guys. We'll talk to you later.
Kevin: Okay guys, it's time to lay down and go to sleep. This is Dad.
