Having a baby Old Style???

SomersetPrincess

I have found all the recent tips really helpful thank you! I am 3 months pregnant and am storing all the tips for future use hehe!

black-saturn

Dont forget also to sell back on ebay all the clothes the baby outgrows. They will only wear them for 5 minutes and there will be absolutely nothing wrong with them.

starlite_2

i would advise not to buy much at all for the first couple of months. we got so many gifts of baby clothes that we had more than we needed.
another tip is to not take of the labels and wash new baby clothes before putting away. i must admit that our baby has grown out of several items before he even wore them, and if they still had labels i could have taken them back to shops or put them on ebay and sold for much more.

Lillibet_2

rosielx wrote:

Try ebay for a good source of bundles of baby clothing - items can work out at 25-30p each including postage. If it includes some items you don't like simply donate them to your local charity shop and help others too. Plus charity shops can be a good source of baby clothing. I've picked up new tagged items for 50p or £1 often. Buy a travel system which includes everything with it so that you don't have to buy a seperate changing back/foot muff/rain cover etc. Plus remember to register you and your partner with the boots parenting club so that you can get the offers for the mum to be to pamper herself too

I've been doing this as Spud has out grown his clothes & putting the money into his trust fund account. I figure as far as I am concerend the money is spent & I'm not expecting anything back so this way Spud gets double benefit of cheap clothes so more money to spend on other things, plus a nest egg for him to blow when he is 18 (Martin advises against putting money in the trust funds by the way!) Also means that if he doesn't get around to wearing expensive clothes that were bought for him by rellys then at least he's getting some benefit by getting the cash.

I too have picked up brand new tagged brand names in the charity shop 50p basket, he's worn them a few times then they've been re-sold as part of a clothing bundle, plus I've sold on other bits he has grown out of, like his first grow bag etc. As long as things are in good condition & you are honest in the description then things sell, plus it's a great place to pick things up in the 1st place. I try to only buy stuff which is as new or better still comes with the original packaging/instructions (sterilisers, baby slings etc) & look after them so that they re-sell better afterwards. Of course I don't advertise that some things are 3rd hand even if they still look as new!

Karnam

this is prob stupid, but i dont sell on the clothes. i got bags and bags of clothes for newborn that little one never wore, from free from friends and family who work for homestart. seeing that i didnt spend any money, i tend to give the newborn stuff away to soon to be mums i know. seems more generous. bit of a grey area selling clothes that were gifts

Lillibet_2

Karnam wrote:

this is prob stupid, but i dont sell on the clothes. i got bags and bags of clothes for newborn that little one never wore, from free from friends and family who work for homestart. seeing that i didnt spend any money, i tend to give the newborn stuff away to soon to be mums i know. seems more generous. bit of a grey area selling clothes that were gifts

Whatever works for you;) Personally I don't have a problem with it 'cos then I think that Spud is getting the benefit from other peoples genorisity but I can also understand your point of view & think it is lovely that you do this.

onestep

hello!

My best advice would be to look out for NCT sales in your area. When I was expecting DD (now 25 months) I bought a fab travel system at my first sale for £30 and it's still going strong. The advice is of course to buy a new car seat for safety reasons, but the rest of the travel system was in mint condition, and included the rain cover - which would have been £20 new in mothercare at the time. The sales do all sorts of equipment, cots, moses baskets (don't get one, waste of money!) and lovely clothes too. Typical costs are around £3-5 for an outfit. If you can be bothered, offer to help at the sale; that way you get to preview the goods before they open the doors to the punters, and you can bag the best stuff for yourself. You don't have to be a member of the NCT to help at the sale.

We didn't spend more than £200 before DD arrived, and we've got everything we need. Definitely try and breastfeed - it is a skill though, and you do have to persevere with it. We used washable nappies up til recently too.

HTH!

onestep

tallulah_beaulah

Not very OS, but for things you want first-hand (we bought car seat, cot bed and buggy first hand). Mothercare have a nursery plan (did have 2 yrs ago) where you can buy everything at once and pay it off over time, with massive interest of course, though there's some reward or discount for paying off within a certain time. They also do 10% off first purchase when you get an account card. So we saved like nobodies business to pay for all the stuff, then went in, opened the Nursery Plan, opened Account, paid for eveything and got 10% off the whole thing.

The car seat, cot bed and buggy were all suitable from birth to three/four years, so still using everything. Just turned cot bed into bed, and its still going strong, LO's been sleeping in it since he came home from hospital.

Good old vinegar - brilliant for cleaning up sick.

Keep all old cloth nappies and muslin cloths - Terry nappies can be used as tea towels and muslins great for cleaning windows.

LO also spent his first year wearing just white vests and babygros. Makes laundry simpler too, coz everythings same fabric and colour.

Cloth nappies and home made food are great, but keep the odd disposable and jar of food in the back of a cupboard (you'll probably get tons of samples of stuff), just so once in a while you can give yourself a break.

There's so much pressure and guilt on new mums, and the first year is so exhausting (and with hormones all crazy), but your baby will think you're the best mum in the world, no matter what 'outfit' their wearing or how much 'stuff' they've got.

Sarahsaver

I was cleaning the bathroom, and put a new hand towel out. I thought 'thats odd I havent got any white hand towels', unfolded it and looked again - it was a terry nappy, still sparkling white, and had survived use on my 3 children, before escaping being sold on ebay! I dyed lots of the white baby stuff colours like purple and orange because I think this fetish for white baby clothes is just so impractical, and totally unnecessary.
I have no problem with selling stuff that was a gift, after all kids grow...I either give things to charity, friends with younger kids, or sell the odd thing on ebay.
Handy hint I learnt from experience...
Keep a cheapo folding buggy until your child is 5 years old or so. Why? Ds1 was ill last year and could not walk, and I had to carry him everywhere bcos at the time I was a single mum and had no one around to help out when i had to take the others to school. He's very big - off the top of the scale most of the time, so I had to ask the nursery part of the school to lend me one.

Petal_3

Don't feel the need to justify yourselves any further with the "palm your kids off" brigade. You don't have to ...and neither do I!