January 28, 2016 Dana

How to create the perfect baby registry: tips from a registry concierge

Diana Toma, the manager at Magic Beans Brookline, has been helping families compose their baby registries for years. As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about our staff’s dream registries, here are some inside tips from Diana for finding the items you need and enticing your loved ones to purchase them.

Buy for different stages.
There are some areas of baby development that have several distinct stages: for instance, you’ll need different equipment to feed your baby when he’s an infant versus when he’s a toddler. Since all these stages happen in about year, register for all of it – a year goes by so fast!

Choose items with a variety of price points.
Don’t register for only the expensive things; your friends and family who can’t afford large items still want to buy for you, and if they can’t afford to get you something nice, they may feel ashamed or left out. That doesn’t mean that you need to forgo the large items, which you should definitely include on the registry for the people (or groups of people) who are able to give you something big; just make sure you have some cheaper items on the list as well.

Registering for gift cards is also a great idea.

Add colorful items.
People love buying for babies, and using attractive and colorful options will excite buyers and get them in the baby-buying mood.

However, picking items by color may slow you down during the initial choosing stage – add items to your registry, and then go back later to tweak the styles and colors.

Use the registry message to communicate your needs.

If you aren’t announcing the gender or aren’t interested in traditional colors, leave a registry message that hints at what colors and themes you want for the baby. Even in Boston, normally non-traditional people may suddenly get very conservative when buying baby presents that have any color to them. Let your people know that you love all colors, or that you love shades of pink, or that you’re doing an animal or car theme, to help direct them in their buying.

Don’t want to make a baby registry?
Do it anyway. There’s a lot going on in your life, you’re going to need a TON of new stuff for your baby, and composing a registry is a great way to keep your thoughts organized. If you have a partner, then you can both refer to the registry while you’re comparing products, and if you’re doing all of the shopping for your baby on your own, you can just use the registry as a checklist.

And seriously, don’t worry about asking your loved ones to buy you things. Americans get even more excited for a new baby than they did for your wedding (which we associate with stress, high costs, travel, and several stages of gift giving), and creating a registry invites your loved ones to be a part of the baby’s journey with you.

Ready to register with Magic Beans? You’ll be so glad that you did! Every baby registry client is assigned their own registry concierge, who will help you compose your list and make sure you get every item you need when you need it. Plus, we offer a lifetime of support on every product, discounts for completion and for multiples, easy exchanges, free shipping on orders over $75, and more.

Or, if you just need one or two items for your baby – a little hand picking the right car seat, stroller, baby carrier, or other key item – you can sign up for a FREE one-on-one consultation with one of our gear experts. We’ll make sure you find what you need and love what you buy!