Nowadays, most people in the United States live within a reasonable distance of a Babies R Us store. It's one of the best places to visit if you're expecting a baby, or just want to buy a baby gift. Even better, if you're NOT close to a physical store, you can access Babies R Us online at www.babiesrus.com . This store is associated with the well known Toys R Us toy store chain, and offers some products offered in Toys R Us as well as many more that are only found at Babies R Us.

It's worth visiting the online store just to get some great ideas for setting up your nursery. The baby super store stocks several collections, and you can browse through all the available items with a few clicks of your mouse. These gorgeous nursery items can be purchased online, or you can head for your local store and check them out up close before making a final decision. At least you can save your feet a few hours of browsing in store! One thing you do have to watch out for - there are some products that are only available online, and others that are exclusively in store.

The baby gift registry is another great service you can access at Babies R Us, and certainly makes life much easier for anyone wanting to buy you a baby gift. You can start your gift registry online or in store, and it's a great way to make sure you get the things you want and need for your baby. This is very important when you're having your second or third baby - the last thing you need is more of the things you already have.

I had a funny experience with a baby gift registry. My local baby super store covers a very large area, and so has a lot of gift registries up and running. The thing was, my gift registry wasn't unique. I don't mean that I'd chosen all the same stuff that every other mum in the area had chosen. I mean that there was another person with the same name as mine, using the same store's gift registry. She'd registered a short while before I did. Even though Babies R Us did a good job of keeping the two registries separate, people attending my baby shower had no idea there were two of them with the same name.

I should have worked out that something was going on when one guess commented on the huge list of stuff I'd entered on my gift registry. Mine was a reasonable size, but nothing like the 8 pages of products belonging to the other register - apparently the mum to be was having triplets!

The penny finally dropped when I started opening presents at my baby shower. People mentioned they'd chosen gifts from my gift registry list, and yet none of them were things I'd asked for. When the baby shower was over, I immediately went online to check my registry. Imagine my surprise when two options came up. The first was for the mum having triplets.

So I had to head off to the baby super store with a big pile of gifts and receipts in hand. The salesperson was very helpful, and I exchanged all the gifts for ones on my own list. It took me a whole afternoon, but it was worth it.

Plus, if there's one thing I know about baby super stores, spending a lot of hours browsing in one is hugely enjoyable!