by Liz Gumbinner posted in Mom Stories

When you bring your new baby home, everyone says "sleep when the baby sleeps" and "breastfeeding gets better" and "get used to having puke on your clothes" and blah blah blah. But there are so many other things I wish I had really really understood and believed when I was a new mother, if only to ease a little anguish and anxiety and all that awful pressure. Also to uh, have saved a little money.

Now, as a mom of two with the youngest entering kindergarten (eep!), and a blogger who's spent six years hearing the wonderful stories and deep challenges of other parents around the world, here are just 12 of the things I would have loved to have known when I was just starting on this insane, wonderful, trying, exhausting, magical parenting journey. Even though I can't guarantee I would have listened. 1. That stuff on your registry" You don't need most of it.

Bottom line, what new moms think they need isn't what they really need.
I'm a material girl, in some ways. I love adorable baby clothes and cute nursery items and four different kinds of lovely body wash in the bathroom. But I've also learned that a lot of items for new moms are designed to prey on fears and what-ifs that never come to be. Skip the ridiculous device that claims to make your baby "smarter" in utero, and the pacifier disinfector. I promise, millions of toddlers with pacifiers that were wiped "clean" on their moms j...