YEY I'm Pregnant! Frugal tips?

LilacLillie

Asda have VERY reduced baby items at the moment (finishes Sunday or Monday 26th / 2th Sept).
I have just bought an older baby car seat ( 3yrs-12yrs) for £12.50, but they had safety gates reduced to £7.50, nappie disposer units £5, travel cots £12.50, buggies £18.50, Johnson toiletries box £7.50 etc: well worth the trip.
Will have to be quick as offer finishes soon.
LL

Penelope_Penguin

Congratulations on your pregnancy :beer: I'll move this to the families board, where you'll get more help

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Janepig

My two top tips are to not bother with a baby bath, buy a cheap as chips washing up bowl, which you can use for washing up when baby outgrows it!!

Also, high-chair wise you can't do better than the Ikea Antilop high chair for £12 ish. Fil got us a very expensive highchair when we had DD and it was rubbish and a nightmare to clean. When DS came along we bought the Antilop and it's fantastic, he's still using it at nearly 4!! I'm postively evangelistic about it!

Jxx

property.advert

Avent bottles and teats with microwave steriliser. Used for 2 years. Dummies as well.

No need for a bottle warmer, useless things. You want it warmed ? put in hot water from the tap or kettle.

I bought starter things at John Lewis. Very keen prices and top quality. Loads of top stuff and offers at certain times. Specialist staff and help in store. Mothercare overrated and overpriced. Their foreign stores have much better kit.

Initially you can use a moses basket or similar but a cot bed is the way to go. I've seen some real good second hand ones on ebay not selling for £20. Buy a new mattress and after a clean, it is as new.

If you have a car, then you need a car seat. If you can afford it, I suggest the maxi combi set up where you put the carry basket into the car and then take it out and put it on a compatible buggy. Choice of buggy going forward seriously depends upon whether you are using public transport. If you are, you want something like a slimline Maclaren, otherwise a less slim buggy may be desirable.

It might sound stupid but don't buy the really small new baby clothes. Why ? well your baby doesn't wear clothes right at the beginning and then they are or grow so fast that they never fit. Also, you want baggy, not tight. My baby wasn't that big but I never opened the first born things - a total waste.

Muslin swatches. You'll need 20 or so. They are used for everything and the little one will make quite a few dirty each day.

I would not go with reusable nappies. Pennies may be tight but some things are worth the money. You also have to value your time and you won't have much of that anyway. We used this brand until we came to the Uk http://www.mamypokoclub.com/Menu_Console/Content_Management/frmContentRender.aspx?PageID=45 and you really want a new born nappy with some umbilical cut out. These nappies leave everything in the UK so far behind.

Congratulations on your news. If I could advise one thing it is to get everything you need to do as soon as you can. That takes all the pressure off the last few weeks. Best of luck.

property.advert

Janepig wrote: »

My two top tips are to not bother with a baby bath, buy a cheap as chips washing up bowl, which you can use for washing up when baby outgrows it!!

Also, high-chair wise you can't do better than the Ikea Antilop high chair for £12 ish. Fil got us a very expensive highchair when we had DD and it was rubbish and a nightmare to clean. When DS came along we bought the Antilop and it's fantastic, he's still using it at nearly 4!! I'm postively evangelistic about it!

Jxx

Yeah, an oblong bowl is fine but I found a baby bath chair http://www.johnlewis.com/230475122/Product.aspx very useful (was nowhere near £15 - JL had one about £5) and I did buy a bath from JL as well as it was only £6 (now 7.75) http://www.johnlewis.com/230397109/Product.aspx

You'll need to think about where you'll soak things (like bibs and clothes etc.) as some will need overnight. I used 2 buckets in the 2nd bathroom, one for whites and one for coloureds. I ended up using the baby bath as well when she outgrew it.

property.advert

Join up with the Boots Parenting Club. You get a stylish baby bag to take when you are out and about and then double points on some things. Sometimes you have to work out that with double points, you are getting 8p in the £1 back from Boots !

Mme.Hibou

property.advert wrote: »

I would not go with reusable nappies. Pennies may be tight but some things are worth the money. You also have to value your time and you won't have much of that anyway.

Reuseable nappies in my opinion are pretty good, we get lots less nappy rash with real nappies than we do with disposables. As for time, well if like me you're lucky enough to have a baby who enjoys his sleep, you'll have bags of time.

mwa

Congratulations!

My top tip would be to join all the clubs and save the vouchers you will get sent for nappies etc then when you get your £190 Health in Pregnancy Grant at 25 weeks go and buy all the nappies, cotton wool, wipes, baby bath etc that you can using the vouchers and special offers. I did this and reckon I have a 6 month supply of everything, enough to see me through to going back to work.

Janepig

property.advert wrote: »

Yeah, an oblong bowl is fine but I found a baby bath chair http://www.johnlewis.com/230475122/Product.aspx very useful (was nowhere near £15 - JL had one about £5) and I did buy a bath from JL as well as it was only £6 (now 7.75) http://www.johnlewis.com/230397109/Product.aspx

With a washing up bowl there's no need for a baby bath chair. What I found with the washing up bowl wasn't just that it was cheaper, but I'd had a proper baby bath with DD and she hated being bathed (I used a towelling bath seat thingy on a frame in it). With DS I used the washing up bowl and he always loved being bathed, and I put it down to him feeling more enclosed/safer in the smaller bowl than DD had been in the baby bath. Plus I didn't want to bath a newborn in the bathroom as it's rather chilly, and a washing up bowl with water in was much lighter to carry to bath baby in front of the fire than a large baby bath.

Jxx

never_enough

Mrs_Tradition wrote: »

Hi All

I found out today I am pregnant - soooo pleased!!!!

Does anyone have frugal tips for pregnancy or birth?

xxx:D

Congratulations! Think everyone has covered anything I'd say other than let your parents or siblings know if you want anything. Friends of mine have had random, very expensive but often unwanted or unecessary things bought by prospective grandparents. I did the same thing when my sister was pg with her first & doubled up on stuff others had bought her because I went shopping when I was unsupervised!

angchris wrote: »

congrats!! i had a baby in march and am now 6 weeks preggo again with 3rd .

Wow! :eek: Hats off to you girl! Lovely to have your children so close together, but you must be superwoman! Have you had any funny comments from people? One of my friends has just become pg again & her youngest is only 8 months. When she told her dad he asked if their new tv had broken! She was doing this :mad: all day! She said she wouldn't have minded if it was a joke, but he was deadly serious!