Start-up costs for new baby

foreverindebted

We spent £96 between finding out we were pregnant and our daughter being born. We used Freecycle for a lot, used a sling (Ela Roo was the best of all the ones we tried) instead of a travel system for the first six months and bought a pushchair for after six months. We were given a car seat as a gift, co-slept and breastfed. While I was DYING to buy clothes, we didn't and in the end were given more than she could wear before she outgrew them. Freecycle was great for baby clothes, as they outgrow them SO quickly. We also switched to reusable nappies pretty early on - big outlay, but SO MUCH cheaper.

They say the average first time UK parents spend around £4000 on setting up for their first child. We decided to forgo that, so that I could have a year at home with our baby rather than having to go back to work to pay off all the things we really didn't need. And yet we still ended up with so much we hardly ever used, if ever, like the baby bath!

I'd also not really bother with baby toilettries - they contain SLS and if your baby has a sensitive skin, you'll be dealing with tons of eczema. We eventually switched to using pure lavender essential oil in the bath water, and Green People or Weleda nappy creams and skin creams.

Also, I'd recommend trying a few breast pumps before buying one. I see you've budgetted £35, which could get you a new Tommee TIppee, but a lot of people get almost no milk out with them. I used a TT but it wasn't great. The Medela is more expensive but worked AMAZINGLY. So, I'd see about renting one till you know what works for you, then buying that.

Good luck! It's an INCREDIBLE journey!

lauren_1

A small warning about cloth nappies....DO NOT BUY ITTI BITTI D'LISH's....ok...got that? once more DO NOT BUY ITTI BITTI D'LISH's....

Hi, I'm lauren and im a itti bitti addict

I started off on a bit of totsbot, progressed on to bamboo and some flexitots, some cute brightbot squares just to tide me over for wash day...you know it's hard when you cant use cos they're wet!!!

Before long i was itching for airflows, fleece liners, sandy's.....:cool: then i found itti's and its down hill from there..there amazing but pricey and still keep 90% of their value on ebay:mad:

I have about 100 nappies now not inc terries and all came to about £120 as they were either from ebay, freecycle or bought as gifts.

all in all i dont think i spent more than £300 for my ds2 even though i was starting from scratch