Baby gear, then and now

Here is some child-rearing equipment that we only began using the fourth time around: Glass bottles, like Philips Avent. We used Playtex disposable liners before and now regret it: what we got in convenience was not worth the cost in money, raw materials, and potential plastics exposure. Our biggest fear going into it was having glass shards all over the house from my sleepily mishandling a bottle at 3am. But no breakages yet! These Avent bottles are quite sturdy — I would expect them to chip the kitchen counter sooner than crack — yet not as heavy as you’d expect for something so robust. One-piece silicone pacifiers, like these from NUK. We have progressively used them less for each of our children — one gets more used to an occasional nocturnal gasp or scream as time goes on, though of course here I speak solely for myself as I know that a certain someone in our house would violently disagree — so I suspect our infant will soon stop needing his, but as he has the nasty habit of…