Top 10 Baby Essentials for Your Newborn With Down Syndrome

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Please see my full disclosure for further information.

Once you get over the initial Down syndrome diagnosis, you realize that you are going to be bringing this baby home, and he/she is going to need lots of STUFF. The good news is, for the most part, babies with Down syndrome need the same baby supplies as any typical baby. The super cute baby clothes, blankets, and room decor won’t change (unless you want to throw some Lucky Few arrows into your design). However, there are a few items that are more important for babies with Down syndrome due to anatomy and development. Here is a list of the baby essentials you will need for your newborn with Down syndrome.

Table of Contents

Toggle

1. A Really Great Nose Suction

Babies with Down syndrome typically have smaller noses and nasal passages, which can lead to frequent nasal congestion and drainage. It seems like many babies, especially in a daycare setting, walk around with runny noses all the time, but Ellie’s mucus level was out of control. This combined with some pretty gnarly viruses led to several hospital stays to help her breathe. I learned pretty quickly that the average bulb syringe and even NoseFrida were no match for her level of mucus, and during a particularly challenging night, I decided to cough up the cash for a Nosiboo at 2:30 a.m. to try to give my poor baby some relief. The Nosiboo was much closer to the level of suction we were getting at the hospital, and it ended up being well worth the money.

People also swear by the NozeBot. This one became popular after I had already bought our Nosiboo, so I haven’t personally tried it, but I know several people who love it.

2. Saline Spray

Before using any kind of nasal aspirator, you will want to loosen the mucus with saline spray. There are plenty of these on the market, but we have always used Little Remedies. They also sell a Little Remedies New Baby Essentials Kit that also includes fever/pain reducer, gas relief drops, gripe water, Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, and a nasal aspirator.

3. Humidifier

I had a humidifier for my two other children that we rarely used, so I thought that I didn’t need to get one for Ellie. Wrong! The humidifier has been a life-saver in terms of helping her breathe at night, and it is something that we still use every single night with her. We have tried not running it a couple of times, and she always wakes up completely congested the next morning. Because we use it so much, we have ended up with a couple different ones.

The Crane animal humidifier is really cute and works well for occasional use, but it couldn’t hold up to our daily usage for years. It was also incredibly difficult to clean. Overall, there are better humidifiers on the market.

Once our Crane died, we got a 3-liter LEVOIT. This one has worked well and is much easier to clean. Because humidifiers can breed mold, you really need to clean them once a week with white vinegar. Another bonus is that this one is small enough to take with us when travelling.

4. Chest Rub

Another must-have that helps with all of the congestion is a baby chest rub. We have used Maty’s All Natural Baby Chest Rub since Ellie was three months old, and it really works to help ease her symptoms. Any time she has the slightest hint of a sniffle, we put this under her neck and on her feet, and it definitely helps her breathe better while sleeping. This particular rub uses eucalyptus, lavender, and chamomile essential oils. Do note that it is not for babies under three months.

5. Oxygen Monitor

Owlet

This one is controversial, but I loved having an Owlet for the first year of Ellie’s life. I was already nervous about her oxygen levels, and this gave me assurance that she was, in fact, breathing throughout the night. It also alerted us to the fact that her oxygen was low on several occasions, which prompted a couple of hospital stays and sped up our ENT/sleep study appointments. Ellie did not have labored breathing, and this device is the only way that we knew her breathing was abnormal before ending up in the hospital for oxygen that had actually fallen into the 70s. All of this led to us being able to bring oxygen and a hospital oxygen monitor home for emergency use.

With all of that said, this is not a medical device. I had the Smart Sock 3, which had live readings of heart rates and oxygen reading, and also got the Owlet company into trouble with the FDA due to being too much like a medical device without FDA approval. As a response to this, Owlet now only sells the Dream Sock in the United States without a prescription, which gives 10-minute averages of heart and oxygen rates. Overall, it will still let you know if average rates are consistently below 90, but this definitely would not work as any kind of SIDS monitor if that is one of your concerns. You’ll have to determine yourself if this version of the device is worth the cost to you.

(Side Note: You can still get a Smart Sock outside of the US and Canada, and the Owlet company has stated that they are trying to increase the capabilities of the Dream Sock with a de novo submission to the FDA so that parents can have better monitoring capabilities without a prescription.)

In complete transparency, I should also mention that many reviews complain about false alarms and connectivity issues. We experienced some of this, but because Ellie was actually having breathing issues, it was still worth it to me to have the device.

After the FDA fiasco, Owlet did also apply for FDA clearance on a new device, the Babysat, which should appear on the market at the end of 2023. This one is, however, a medical device, and will need a prescription from a doctor. I am not sure what the requirements for a prescription would be, but since 53-76% of babies with Down syndrome have sleep apnea, it’s worth a mention to your pediatrician/ENT.

Finger Pulse Ox

When we were trying to determine if Ellie’s oxygen was actually as low as the Owlet was reading, we ended up purchasing a finger pulse oximeter for comparison. This Zacurate Children’s Pulse Oximeter is only for children two and over (due to small finger size), but it has always worked great for us. Now that Ellie doesn’t consistently need monitoring devices at night, this finger pulse ox is great for spot checking oxygen to see if she is ever low.

There are other new oxygen devices on the market now, so if oxygen is a concern, you might want to do a search to figure out what would work best for you and your baby.

6. Play Mat

One of the first items that we used in both our OT and PT sessions was a baby play mat. Like all babies, some of the first skills that Ellie had to master were lifting her head, reaching for objects, and rolling over. The baby play mat helped with all of these.

Any play mat really will do, but I listed three popular ones below. The first one is Lovevery; it is a favorite of many people but also really expensive. However, it does transform into a tent as your child gets bigger. The other two are Fisher-Price and Baby Einstein, which are more reasonably priced.

Bonus: A baby mirror can also help babies lift their heads as they try to see themselves.

7. Easy to Grasp Toys

The first toy that Ellie ever learned to grab was the Manhattan Toy Winkel Rattle and Sensory Teething Toy. We used this in both our OT and PT sessions, and our PT mentioned that it was the one toy that all the babies she worked with absolutely loved.

8. Breathable Sheet/Mattress

This is not something that everyone will need, but Ellie was an early roller and loved sleeping face down. It was terrifying! We ended up ditching her crib sheets and switching them out for this Lullaby Earth Breathe Safe Mattress Pad. It is certainly not soft, but it eased my worries about her suffocating herself. (Note: Do not put a sheet over the mattress pad; that would defeat the purpose of the breathable fabric.) We did not buy the actual Lullaby Earth Breathe Safe Mattress because we already had our mattress when this problem started, but it comes with rave reviews.

9. A Range of Bottle Types

With my two typical children, finding a good bottle was a matter of what was easiest to clean or what didn’t leak. For Ellie, however, it was different. Hypotonia affects all muscles, including the hundreds of muscles in the mouth. Because of this, latching on in breastfeeding and even finding a bottle nipple that works can be a challenge. It seems that no two babies with Down syndrome are exactly the same in this area, so we ended up trying lots of bottles before finding what worked best for her. I would suggest not listing a full supply of bottles on a registry and instead trying singular bottles of many different brands while trying to determine what is best for your baby. One way that we did this is through a Babylist bottle box. The box came with five different types of bottles for us to try before determining which worked best for Ellie. If you’re dying to know which we chose, it was the Nuk due to it’s flat nipple.

When your baby is ready to graduate from bottles to the sippy cup, most occupational therapists will start him/her on the honey bear cup. This is exactly what it sounds like — a honey bear with a straw in it. The honey bear cup is easier for our babies to use because they can squeeze the cup to get liquid instead of having to use all of those mouth muscles to suck.

10. A Large Baby Bathtub

It typically takes our babies longer to learn how to sit up, so investing in a good baby bathtub that is large enough to grow with a child who has developmental delays is essential. We actually used the Primo Eurobath 2-Stage Baby Bathtub with all three of our kids, but our older two kids graduated out of it much earlier than Ellie. This tub has one side for babies who can’t sit up and the other side for babies who can. Ellie is nearly three years old, and the sitting side is still big enough for her. Warning: This is a large baby tub. It should fit in all bathtubs, but if you are low on space, it could be difficult to store it.

For the most part, registering for your newborn with Down syndrome is the same as registering for a typical baby. Once you have your essentials, you can add all of the cute clothes, toys, and decor!

Add any additional baby gear that was helpful for your newborn with Down syndrome in the comments below! And if you are a new mom of a baby with Down syndrome, you might be interested in the following posts: