What were the top things you did or purchased for your baby/toddler?

Personally, beyond providing the basics like food to eat, shelter, clean clothes, and being emotionally responsive, I think the best think you can do with little kids is read to them. And you can read them literally anything.

When my first baby was little and I was doing my first degree, sometimes I didn’t have the energy to read children’s books on top of my study stuff, so sometimes I read my baby textbooks and journal articles so I could kill two birds with one stone (bedtime stories & study). With the first son, I did this from about 8month - 3 years, and second son just joined in on that action at birth until about 1year. When the older one started wanting actual children’s stories, I had to buy some children’s books. We went mostly for Dr Seuss, partly they were also the cheapest books I could get.

Ultimately, I don’t think it matters what I read a child that small, I think it was the act of reading with them, and them hearing the language as well. People always used to comment that both my children had amazing vocabularies for their ages when they were little. I like to think it’s because they got stories like “Human anatomy and Physiology” “Human development through the lifespan” and journal articles, and other really dry, but informative texts.

From first day of first year, until today: spend time and talk with him, explain what's going on, chat about the day, the weather, the toys, the house, ... anything. And listen to what he has to say.

Benefit: his speech is "at normal levels for a boy his age" according to school principal. Only two children in his 20-child classroom are at that level.

And he's bilingual.

By a wide margin: diapers. Little cloths for wiping up spit and drool a close second, though if you use cloth diapers they can catch the mess at both ends.

Car seat required, I always got the higher-end models with the best safety ratings. A good stroller as well, preferably the kind that work with the car seat.

Children mainly need your time, attention, and lots of patience. They generally don't need a lot of things until they get older, at which point they will tell you what they want.

Authority: I raised three children who started out as babies and toddlers and all lived to adulthood.

Acted as an actually good parent, not just someone who plays one on social media.

Read books about parenting, paid attention, did required medical tests and advocated with healthcare.

Purchases? Healthy food, mostly.

We purchased an Inglesina hook-on chair cover which was great as it allowed the little ones to sit at the table with us, instead of feeling separate with some of the bigger high chairs. It was a pain to clean, so we also got a Wunderland cover for it. We used this from around 6mo to about 3.5y for my older, and 6mo to 2.5y for my younger one.

Magna-tiles have been a big hit for both from about 2yo and on. Lots of knockoffs on Amazon, but we haven't had any issues with the 2 sets we purchased.

For books I really connected with "Hunt Gather Parent".

Aside from that, I'd say top thing is patience and sometimes just being quiet and not interfering when they're playing.

Ropes, bars, climbing walls. You can make it perfectly safe and tiny humans are incredibly sturdy.

Joints, ankles, tendons, muscles will get strong & flexible.

Balance, falling, control are only three of the many passive & active skills that will grow.

They are the foundation for all kinds of higher lvl human stuff.

We all know how important physical health & full body flexibility, mobility & endurance are. Let the kids start early and organically.

One thing I did was I uninstalled every social media app from my phone, turned on greyscale, turned off notifications so I could be more present with the time I have.

I also have a more "boring" yet stress free job that gives me a lot more patience for the challenges that come with young children.

A tall garage can with a foot operated lid, right next to the crib, emptied daily, is magic, both in terms of utility and odor control.

As others have said, your time and attention. It's really easy to try to defend your own time. Don't. Come out of your world, and enter theirs. Be with them.

If you can afford it, get a cleaning service. You and your spouse/partner have a huge new demand on your time. It helps if you can cut something else.

Somwthing that stands out was a cheapest of the cheap $5 new stroller. It is not good enough to be the main pram. It is not quality enough for a young baby. But for 1-3 yo it is perfect for travel. So light! And beach trips where there is enough parafenalia to bring as it is.

Books and read to my child daily. Now he reads way ahead of his peers and love books

Did: read to them every day.

Purchased: their firstnamelastname.com domain name.

White Noise Machine 0+

a savings bond