Feeding gear gets bought in four waves, and buying it all at once is how people end up with a cupboard of unused equipment.
This section is organized the way the year actually runs.
Weeks 0–6: the pump and the first bottles
Buy the pump before the birth if you expect to need one, because insurance processing takes longer than a newborn will wait. Buy bottles one at a time.
Babies reject bottle teats for reasons nobody can predict, and a twelve-pack of the wrong one is money gone. One of each of three brands costs less than one starter set and answers the question in a week.
Months 2–6: the pump becomes the product
If you are pumping regularly, this is where the difference between a good pump and an adequate one stops being theoretical.
Suction strength matters less than cycle range and flange fit. A pump that runs at the wrong flange size hurts, yields less, and gets abandoned, and flange sizing is the single most common unfixed problem we see in owner reports.
Months 6–12: solids, and the mess
The high chair is the biggest purchase in this section and the one judged on the wrong criterion. People buy on looks and live with cleaning.
A chair with a seam pattern that traps food takes ten minutes a day. Over the two years you own it, that is a working week spent on a design decision somebody made to save a molding step.
Year 2: the toddler tax
Sippy cups, plates, utensils, snack pots. Small individually, relentless together, and the only test that matters is whether it leaks in a bag.
What we weight differently here
Dishwasher survival. Manufacturers rate parts as dishwasher-safe on a single cycle; we care about the hundredth, because that is when the valve warps, the print comes off the measuring marks, and the teat starts to collapse mid-feed.