Would you buy nearly new goods for your baby?

victoriaplum1

My mum used to run a second hand baby goods shop where she used to sell thigns like pushchairs prams cots, shed sell them on for people at a commission and basically could have sold everything 3 times over the demand was so great. I have often thought good quality second hand designer clothes would do well as well as good quality equipment as baby stuff is so expensive new and personally I dont see a problem with second hand if its good condition! Why waste money buying everything brand new if you cant tell the difference if you buy seconds carefully ayway?

overlykeensaver

I have bought some things new and other things second hand (ebay, village fetes etc). Cot, carseat, buggy etc was new. Lots of clothes, some toys and books I bought second hand. I think in the first couple of years at least, they grow so quickly, only play with toys for a short while before they are outgrown so it makes sense (for me at least) to save money where I can so we can save it for other things - her child trust fund for one. there is standing joke with my mum that whenever she sees my baby in something new (ie that she hasn't seen before) she will say "where's that from? ebay?" And usually the answer is yes OR I will say, no I bought it last year in the sale. I try not to pay full price for her clothes so will wait for the sales and buy for the year ahead.

HugoSP

We bought a lot of new stuff for our first child. Cot, pram, pushchair etc, but we were given a 2nd hand 0 to 9 month car seat by my wife's aunt. We knew the seat had never been in an accident or treated badly.

When the second child came along we reused most of the old stuff except the above mentioned car seat. We bought a new one in a sale.

However, both children wore both new and secondhand clothes, there developed an honour system that families would pass clothes around. Some families were 4th or 5th owners of some items of clothing before they hit the bin. Occasionally one set of parents would rub people up ther wrong way by selling clothes that they had been given, especially when they didn't need the money.

When ours were older and BiL and his wife had one on the way, we gave them our cot and a few other things. his wife was keen to buy new and soon found out how much it all cost! She bought a new cot despite ours being there for her, which was her choice and I respect that.

I know that when the 2nd child came along she was not so hung up on new stuff.

When we had the odd clearout we did sell the bigger baby seat for £5. There are people that buy them, as they are strapped for cash (as we were). However the 0 to 9 month seat that we bought new from Argos actually got returned for a refund under the guarantee as, just prior to baby growing out of it we noticed that the webbing on the harness was actually unravelling! This was about 8 months after we bought it! The baby in question was ready for the second stage seat anyway so she went in there as opposed to us having to replace the first stage seat.

So some new stuff can be unsafe too.

I guess a shop for 2nd hand baby stuff would always work if the local market was not saturated and that the gear was reasonably priced. Even in affluent areas there will be people with bigger mortgages and flash cars, they need to make the savings somewhere. Most people who have money hold onto it in one way or another.

I would exclude car seats and matresses (no reson why you can't stock new ones) but include everything else.