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I would wait until after the shower.

A few of my friends chipped in and got me the stroller and car seat and my grandma bought the crib. You just never know!

I didn't buy anything before my shower either! I ended up buying most of my registry stuff myself afterwards since I have such a small family but my parents and ILs got me a bunch of the bigger stuff.

The only things people didn't buy were the grosser bodily function type stuff....nose freida, breast pads....that kind of stuff.
And diapers. Everyone in the world seems to get diapers at their showers, but we got none.

You never know. I'm one of the first of my friends to CD and a group of them went in on all of my CD- which I did not expect anyone to buy. we bought our own crib because I found the exact one I wanted on Craigslist. I also bought all of the feeding stuff myself.

We bought the crib ahead of time. Some family members spoke up for infant car seat, for example. Otherwise we waited until after the shower and bought the stroller ourselves and whatnot. I had a fairly small baby shower and will not have a work one.

Wait for the shower but from my experience, people didn't buy me anything that had to do with breastfeeding.

I'd also wait until after the shower! My SIL was so hesitant to put her BOB stroller on her registry, and I kept encouraging to do it, because my other SIL, mom and I wanted to get it for her and split it. People like to get big things and split them with others if they know they'll be used for a long period of time, and you never know how generous someone wants to be!

We did the same thing in putting everything on Amazon. We'd mark something as fulfilled if we ended up getting a screaming deal (ex: I got a My Best Friend with a thick velour pink cover for $19 on a lightning deal), but just left everything for the discount. I did hoard diapers and wipes using coupons when I was pregnant (watch Target for their "spend $100-ish dollars and get $20-ish back in gift card" deals and use it with both Target and manufacturer coupons for Pampers or Huggies). Glad we did - the only diapers I got was the diaper cake at my shower.

I bought my own breastfeeding supplies - lanolin cream, breast pads, nursing tanks, milk bags, extra pump supplies - and we purchased our own stroller accessories, like the parent organizer and bumper bar, and the travel bags for our stroller and carseat. People got us clothes - like full outfits - but honestly DS lived in footed zip-up sleepers for at least 4 months. So we ended up buying a lot of those in many different sizes. We also ended up buying 3-4 different kinds of bottles and pacis before finding what worked. We bought the boring stuff like waterproof crib pads, pack n' play mattress, pad, and sheet, baby Tylenol and Advil, saline spray, Nose Frieda, temporal thermometer, first aid kit, gripe water, teething tablets, etc. But a lot of the BFing and health related stuff may be eligible for your FSA if you have one, so check on drugstore.com first.

I agree with everyone else- wait until after your shower. In general, some categories / types of gifts were more popular than others on our registry, but there were some surprises as well. The most expensive item was purchased but not the 2nd or 3rd highest. Very few breast feeding items were purchased, but nipple butter was one of the first things to go. As much as people liked cute gear overall, no one bought the bouncer.
Another reason to wait is to use a registry completion discount for whatever you don't get.

We bought the crib and all nursery decor/furniture ourselves but my MIL bought us a recliner and my parents bought the travel system. I just looked online and most of the "bigger items" (swing, rnp, etc) have been purchased. I have a TON of stuff to return to Target (we got a lot of out of season stuff + duplicates) so I am going to put that money toward the items we don't get from the shower.