Newbie, and first time expectant mum. Help.

Tillymynt

How do all,

This is my first ever post!! How exciting.

I'm 35, and expecting my first baby in June, and I'm completely clueless as to what we NEED for the Jelly Bean's arrival. People have told us lots of things that we should get, but we're not sure what is a necessity, and what we can do without - and are also quite flaming shocked at the prices of a lot of baby stuff.

Any and all advice would be very much appreciated.

Cheers m'dears.

don9999

Congratulations!

I'm sure you've already been advised about lots of things, but I guess its important to separate the things you will definitely need (eg. somewhere for the baby to sleep) and things that are only nice to have (eg. a nappy changing table).

Now let me think....

• A cot - baby will need somewhere safe and comfortable to sleep
• A car seat - assuming you will travel with baby (at least from hospital to home) then you will need an appropriate car seat
• Nappies - or Terrys depending on which way you go
• Wipes/cotton wool - you will need something to clean baby with
• Cleaning stuff - for giving baby a bath
• Baby clothes including hat (and sometimes gloves)

Other non-essentials....

• Baby bottles - Assuming you're breast-feeding you won't need these straight away
• Bottle steriliser - again, don't need this until you need the bottles
• Changing mat/table - a mat is useful to protect floor/table etc. from mishaps during nappy changes - some people go to the extravagance of buying a special nappy changing table
• Dummies - some people (including myself) don't believe in using dummies
• Toys - not relevant to a new-born baby, even to look at due to their poor eyesight
• Baby-bath - can be useful for giving baby a bath

I'm sure there will be plenty of other people offering advice. But take care in differentiating what you really NEED, as opposed to what some people have found useful. What one person finds extremely useful, may remain unused at another person's house eg. I have three children in nappies, so we have the 'extravagance' of a nappy bin - of course we could take all nappies straight outside, but with the number of nappies we go through its easier to put them in the nappy bin, which masks the smell etc.. Other people would think this an unnecessary expense.

Any questions, feel free to PM me.

Cheers,
Don

Lillibet_2

Hi Tillymynt

Congratualtions & welcome to the board!

I too am expecting my first & here is the list I have complied of necessities, maybe more experienced moneysavers could comment & point us both in the right direction?

Crib/moses basket/Something for the first few months
I am being given a swinging crib which will need a new mattress.

Cot & mattress
I am opting for a cot-bed, slightly more expensive than a cot but good for the first 5 ish years, Nippers appear to have a good & reasonably priced selection.

Bed Linen
My midwife has warned me to avoid quilts/duvets/grobags for the first 6 months. My mum has kindly offered to cut down & hem some spare regular sheets etc to fit crib & cot, we will be purchasing crib blankets from wilkinsons (@ £4.99 for 2) & maybe a quilt for the cot bed

Pram
A bewlidering area! As far as I can tell prams, push-chairs & buggies are all different but do basically the same thing! At the end of the day they transport baby with wheels! I am looking for a birth to toddler option, I don't drive so it needs to be sturdy enough for walking & local transport but hubby uses a car so needs to fold easily to fit in to the boot & still leave room for a springer spaniel! Oh yes, and we don't have a hall at home to keep it in so I don't want anything too bulky. Maybe I'm asking too much!! Comments please?

Car seat
Don't be tempted by second hand offers, buy the best you can afford from a reputable retailer seems to be the advice here.

Changing mat
£4.99 from Wilkinsons. I don't care if it matches the nursery decor, after all, baby's just going to poo on it!

Nappies
We plan to use disposables for the first few weeks & are collecting as many coupons & samples as we can find to keep the cost down. I don't plan to use them for long enough to be brand loyal. In the long term we plan to use re-uasbles, again a bewlidering array of options available but I think we have narrowed it down to motherease birth to toddler range plus wraps. I have been trying to get them on ebay (about 1/2 retail price) but keep being out-bid!

Clothes
Mum, Mother-in-law, sister-in-laws, Auntie & Nan are all knitting like mad. Coupled with some cheap (Boots essentials range/Tescos value range) baby grows I anticipate being able to get through the first 6 months without needing to go clothes shopping!

Carry Sling
Hubby is insistant we need one. I am not convinced, I can see the benefit but surely baby is going to out-grow it very quickly? If we do decide to get one there seems to be a huge selection on ebay & there isn't as much competition as for the nappies!

Bouncy chair thingy
I have been given one but we were looking at Tescos, who seem to have a good range at very reasonable prices.

Bath
Again I have been given one but I have heard use a basin on washing up bowl for the first few weeks then take baby under the shower with you is the easiest option here.

Montior
Don't get anything too fancy, it'll leave you wracked with fear seems to be the general advice. We will be getting the most basic mains/battery option that we can find.

Nursery furniture
Sorry, not buying into this myth at all. As soon as baby can walk/hold a crayon all furniture is fair game. We are planning on cheap Ikea basics for the first 5 years or so.

In the longer term we know we will need to get:

High chair
Planning on checking local paper's small ads

Playpen
Thinking we might get a palypen/travel cot combi here? Again small ads or ebay will probably come good.

Stairgates
General advice seems to be you need to screw them to the walls, the plunger type aren't stong enough. Ont eh other hand we have a really narrow staircase so am not sure we will be able to get ones to fit? If all else fails, dad will do something with some MDF & hinges, as he did when I was a baby!

Cupboard locks
Haven't investiged yet but I seem to think tha the internal ones which you push to release are about the best & least obtrusive?

Toys etc
Thats what doting relatives/Christmas/Birthdays are for!!!!

Additions & comments welcome!!

Cheers
Lillibet

katglasgow

Hi, I had my son just over a year ago - how time flies!

Clothes
He was the first grandson on both sides and we were completely gobsmacked by the number of gifts he had - virtually all clothes. I kept 6 outfits for each size and anything overthat I took back to the shop and asked if I could exchange it for a gift voucher - to allow you to bigger bigger sized clothes but in the correct season. I would only advise you to get unisex vests and sleepsuits for nerwborn and absolutely nothing else. We got gifts from people we had never even met before (colleagues of MIL etc etc...).

Changing
I never bothered with a changing table as they are very expensive. As soon as baby is rolling they are dangerous anyway, I just used - and still do - a changing mat on the floor. Asda sell them for less than £10 and they also sell baths, top n tail bowls very cheaply as well as smart price nappy sacks. Baby wipes can give newborns a rash so you might want to use cotton wool and water for bums at first. Its much cheaper to buy balls of cotton wool in the ladies/cosmetic section than the baby ones - what a con!

Feeding
Breast feeding saves a fortune and is really easy once you get into the swing of it. You would probably want to stick to Avent for feeding materials as they all fit into each other: breast pump, bottles. If you have a dishwasher you dont need a steriliser. I have a small microwave one that was quite cheap but there is nothing wrong with a bucket of cold water and steriliser liquid!

Travel
Mothercare do a group 0 car seat for £35 and it came out with a very high safety score in the most recent Which Safety Guides.

Ebay are good for prams/pushchairs. Talk to your friends and work out what your priorities are - if you are walking about lots locally you might want a big pram, for lots of tavelling in the car something that folds easily, or public transport and fold using 1 arm model. Personally for my next I am planning to get a Pilko pushchair that lies flat so is suitable from birth.

Toys
We were given a Early Learning Centre baby gym second hand and it is the most brilliant thing ever. From the age of 6 weeks I could lie my baby underneath it and he would spend ages gaving up at the brightly coloured toys. He still loves to play with it now at 14 months! If you are considering buying a baby gym - or mamybe you could ask a favourite relative to buy you one - try to go for a plastic one with lots of rattly toys as the soft cute fluffy ones IMO seem to be a lot less appealing to babies and are a bit of a waste of money.

Enjoy your pregnancy!

Yoga_Girl

Congratulations Tillymynt and welcome to the boards!

Newborn babies grow so quickley I think its a waste of money buying lots of new clothing, basically for the 1st few weeks all they do is sleep a lot so all mine wore for a while were babygrows.

Its worth checking out the NCT nearly new sales as they have lots of good quality 2nd hand baby stuff, details of sales in your area are usually listed on their web site:

https://www.nctpregnancyandbabycare.com

We didn't use a baby bath much as we found it much easier to put them straight in the bath, my sister used a washing up bowl to bathe hers in when they were tiny.

For the 1st few weeks I used cotton wool and water to wash them with, I used newborn nappies for the 1st few weeks til I'd got my head together then put them into washable nappies.

We had a moses basket for baby to sleep in but after about a week they went into a bedside cot, some babies do stay in them longer though.

I think just get some basic white clothing (vests, babygrows), hat and coat, cot, bedding, car seat, anything else you're not sure about you can always wait til the babies home and decide then. Baby companies will try to convince you that you need everything and you don't!

When you choose your buggy also think about what you'll be using the buggy for the most (eg round the shops or country walks) and the size of your car boot that the folded buggy will have to fit into, or if you need something that folds easier for use on public transport.

If I think of anything else I'll post again!

tiff

My two are 7 and 4. I used a moses basket for both of them until they were ready for the cot. You dont actually need a cot until about 6 to 8 weeks after they are born if you use a moses basket in the first weeks.

With the carry sling the problem you might have is if your baby is a whopper or grows really quickly you might struggle with carrying them in a sling.

I didnt use a monitor, we always went and checked on them regularly in the first weeks, but obviously get one if it makes you feel happier.

Lillibet, Ikea do (or used to do) a stairgate that is adjustable, might be ok for your stairs but you would need to check. Its a wooden one.

If you are working you will get lots of things from colleagues and of course family. Leave the clothes till nearer the end. I only used babygros for the first weeks, with a cardigan if its cold. Makes life a lot easier.

Re bathing the baby, I was given a baby bath but our parents used to use the kitchen sink. Sounds wise to me, no aching back, just the right height and doesnt cost anything!

katglasgow

Hi Lilibet - I think the M+P Pilko could be for you!

It is worth joining the Pampers and Huggies clubs on line as they will send you money off coupons very regularly by post.

I did eventually buy a carry sling and used it loads and it was great for Dad. I got a free ticket to the local Mother and Baby Show and they have a Tomy pushchair park - you have in your pushchair and "roadtest" a Tomy sling with the option to buy at half price (FP £35?). Didnt really have enmugh money to buy the sling so took it back at the end of the day but as my darling son had thrown up on it I was offered it for a fiver! I think come up rerasonably often in local paper / Ebay.

Tillymynt

Thanks for that - we've been lucky so far, in that friends have donated a moses basket, cot bed and high chair (and lots of bedding).

The inlaws are buying the pram for us (with car seat hopefully), and the only MAJOR purchase we're intending on for now is a rocker chair for me - as I'll be feeding the little 'un for as long as possible.

It's all the other little stuff that has me puzzled. The mags would have you think that you need to spend a fortune on stuff, but I'm determined to whittle everything down to what we need.

I'm not even going to buy bottles etc., unless I positively CANNOT breast feed. But I'm determined to give it a good try first.

We've already got a ruck of nappies - KwikSave had quite a good sale on, and my mother bought a load for us... though I'm sure we'll get through those quite quickly.

Asda has proved useful (and CHEAP) for baby vests/sleep suits/etc...

But your lists have helped me to get straight some of the other stuff we're likely to need in the first couple of months. I'm trying to get as much sorted now, as we'll be losing my wages for a while (I'm intending taking a full year away from work).

Thanks again - and keep it coming.

elona

General tip to anyone thinking of buying special baby sheets for crib etc. If you use a pillowcase and put mattress in it as if it IS a pillow then it does not "ruckle up" and you have a wider choice of colours texture etc.

That saved me a bomb years ago. I also made a home made patchwork qult ( with thin wadding so it was safe) and put it on top of pram etc. It took very little time and saved a lot of money plus no one else had anything like it.:)

Yoga_Girl

Had some more thoughts to add to my earlier post!

Both my babies loved the rocker chair, we had a basic one (not one of those vibrating ones) that also came in handy when we started to feed them solids and didn't have a high chair,

Also used baby slings a lot, especially when we took the dogs out for a walk and using a sling was much easier (especially when we went to local woods). We had 2 slings - a baby bjorn one that we used for out & about, and a huggababy sling ( its like a big cloth that drapes diagonally across you) that was great for soothing a crying baby, you could pop the baby in the sling and wander round the house doing whatever you needed to do.

I used grobags for both mine to sleep in and they loved them (youngest still does!), if you check out www.grobag.com they sell grobags you can use from 6 weeks old.

Didn't bother with special "nursery" furniture, got basic stuff from ikea and a 2nd hand chest of drawers that doubled up as a changing table, once baby starts to move its much safer to change them on the floor though.

Oh and I did find muslin squares useful for draping over me to catch baby sick! They're also useful if you're breastfeeding as I would leak and squirt all over the place so I used them to mop up the excess!

tiff

Tilly, you WILL be able to breastfeed but it might be a case of persevering. We can all do it but getting the hang of it is more difficult for some than others. I breastfed mine for 9 months and 7 months respectively. It takes a lot out of you as you are the one that has to get up at night etc but if you can get into a good routine you can have your baby sleeping through the night around 6 to 8 weeks or maybe before!