Nappies and baby things

viticella

Umm, from my experience, can't comment on disposable nappies as using washables but on other matters;

Most money we wasted was on buying unnecessary or unsuitable things, rather than necessary things at an expensive price!

Make friends now with other people with babies - try and find a "bumps and babies" group or similar (try a local Sure Start, Health Visitor, Early Years centre, NCT class friends). They will give you the lowdown on what's worth it and what isn't, and may even lend/pass on outgrown things. I keep getting bags of outgrown clothes from a friend's neighbour I've never even met - sons are immaculate in Gap and Next for free!

- Borrow or get everything possible secondhand (except car seat and cot mattress of course), spread your good news and useful things will start flooding in.
- Get everything else possible from IKEA. The £29 cot and £11 highchair have done us proud.
- Resist kitting out nursery in expensive co-ordinating stuff - just buy some stikarounds from ebay.
- Breastfeed, I guess. Formula hideously expensive, sterilising a pain in the neck.
- Washable nappies are not as bad as you might think, geniune money saver if you have drying facilities. Oh, and get a ceiling airer to cut down on tumble drying of endlessly sicked-on clothes.
- If you can get a Babies-R-us catalogue, they are always cheaper than mothercare and have a "everything for your baby for £500" page.
- Join mumsnet.com (if not already) and read their thread on "Biggest waste of money" - will give you a laugh anyway.
- Don't buy baby oil, lotion or shampoo. Never get used.
- Get free "Birth to Five" baby instruction book from Health Visitor

Don't economise on pushchair/pram though, you will be pushing it for months so make sure you're happy with it even if it's not new. Try out friends' ones, not in pram shop where you get carried away.

davidsonsl

I saw review once that said if you include cost tesco own brand nappies are better than pampers and huggies. I never bought anything other that pampers for my toddler but then I had twins and tried tesco own brand and I can confirm they are just as good as pampers, I have also tried morrisons and asda and they do not compare but tescos I give the thumbs up to and they are so much cheaper even when pampers are on offer.

jo_b_2

f3333f wrote: »

I was wondering if there are any money saving tips for disposable nappies, how could i get vouchers for £££ off? Which nappies are the best to go for? Anything else i should know for keeping the cost down to a minimum of a soon to be newborn baby?

Any tips at all would be really welcome, thanks.

There is a whole article dedicated to saving money on nappies HERE that might give you some more ideas.

Welcome to the site by the way :wave: and congrats on the imminent arrival.

Lillibet_2

You really need to wait until babe is born to find which nappies suit, and this might change as they grow into bigger sizes anyway! As you can probably tell just from this thread, different brands suit different ones. Personally we used Pampers newborn (becuase we had soooo many samples & coupons for them, their philosophy is to get you hooked on them cheaply then you don't tend to break away & the prices creep up as you need to start buying them!) then Tescos own through the crawling months and now we find Boots own brand ones fab now Spud is at the toddler stage and cost us only £13 a month and we get loads of advantage points, but as a baby they leaked like mad and you use a whole lot more when they are babies:rolleyes:

Def sign up to Boots & Tescos baby clubs and register on line with all the major baby brands, they will all send you coupons, samples & freebies. Save those samples & freebies, even the ones you think go against your principals or that are more than a year or so ahead of their need, you might/will use them eventually! I've had free samples of trainer pants stashed since before Spud was born, I know we'll use them eventually.

Start frequenting freecycle, even put a wanted add for baby equipment on here, you'll be suprised at what is available just for the sake of collecting it. We've had everything from half used bags of nappies to trikes:D Never ever refuse anything, even if you don't want it. If you refuse you might not be offered again, just take it with a smile & say you're not sure but if you find you don't need it you'll pass it on to someone who does, most givers are happy with this (make sure you do pass it on, Karma & all that!;))

Do you visit car boot sales? Because of the birth month your little one will do a lot fo growing up in the "off season" where you won't have the opportunity to buy things so cheaply. If you can afford to, shop ahead, you might not need highchairs & playpens in september but you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't spend that fiver a few months ago when you are shelling out £100 in February! We bought our highchair when Spud was 3 weeks old, we didn't use it for another 7 months but it only cost us £2.50 & served as a plant stand in the conservatory in the mean time:p

Breast feeding is the cheapest option but it doesn't suit anyone. I found it far more painful than giving birth & cried with every feed for a month (I mean sobbed & begged for gas & air!), however with the help of my wonderful husband & a fab BF counsellor I found on this site, I got through the hard bit & saved myself a fortune is formula costs ( you are looking at around £7 per can of formula for the next 12 months which equates to roughly £600:eek: and thats assuming yoru babe doesn't have any intolerences or allergies & need special formula which can run at upto £35 a can:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:) However, like I say it is a personal thing & please don't berate your GF if she doesn't BF, it is impossible to describe how painful I found it.

Finally, remember that the best thing you can give your babe is time & love, if it's a choice between a day at home with your GF & child or working extra shifts in order to buy "stuff" (OK, not food or heat maybe, but "stuff") then go with the time at home. Babe won't notice how big the mountian of Christmas presents is, but they do notice when you aren't there.

Good luck;)