Having a baby Old Style???

~BamNaggy~

A few money saving tips from my Nan, bless her:

If your bubs has a dummy, tie a little bit of ribbon to the dummy and then pin the ribbon to bub's coat. Then if she/he spits the dummy out (as they usually do) you won't lose the dummy in the street. This should save you a few dummies. Just ensure the safety pin is secure.


Petroleum jelly/Vaselene is cheap when you buy a large own brand tub. It's ideal for sore bottoms and creating a barrier from urine on bottoms. It is as good as all the fancy, expensive creams. The best thing for sore baby's bottoms is fresh air - so try and get that bottom nappy free when possible.

Handwash baby knits, they will last longer, keep their shape and rarely go bally.


If you run out of sterlising tabs, you can boil bottles and teats for a few minutes in a pan of boiling water. They only need a few minutes, but don't leave the pan unattended AT ALL.

Don't be shy about asking your doctor for creams, lotions and potions on prescription. Take advantage of your free scripts to give Bubs the very best start.

Good luck BunnyBabe x x

hollythecat

I breastfed and my best buy was a v-shaped cushion from a drapers for £5 and a suede effect cover for it for £3. Breastfeeding cushions are about £25 and no different from what I can see. Even though this wasn't an essential, it was nice to have a hand free to change channel or turn magazine pages when feeding for an hour at a time (big baby, took a lot of filling up!)

aloiseb

I don't know if this got mentioned before- haven't time to read whole thread! - but my best tip is: buy a pretty, strong necklace which you can just put over your head so that you can look "dressed up" more quickly, when the occasion demands a bit more than the usual rigout of baggy trousers and jumper!

Also you can let the baby play with it (under v close supervision in case it breaks) at odd moments. I had a good quality "gold" chain which went with everything. My dd teethed on for half an hour dutring one delayed train journey, greatly impressing the other passengers!

(yes, probably wasn't v hygenic but she had taken to crawling around the kitchen floor by then so I gave up to a certain extent...she's 14 now, and still alive, for the record)

lauren_1

Good Evening OS'ers

Any helpful tips for a OS pregnancy and beyond?

Any things you can do without?

Any helpful advice about make do and mend? (r.e turning plus sized garments in to maternity clothes)

Any other pearls of wisdom?

Many Thanks in advance

seraphina

Breastfeeding - free and the best thing for you and your baby, can't get much more OS than that!

Also try not to get suckered into everything that seems to go with babies these days. They need love, comfort and food, and that's pretty much it!

Trust your instincts - do you really need to buy a special baby bathwater thermometer to see if your bathwater is too hot? Stick your elbow in instead - if it's not comfortable for your elbow, it's too hot for the baby. Ditto for room thermometers.

And have fun!

falady

Hi there,

My first baby is due in September, and hubby and I have tried a number of moneysaving / OS things.....

Take advantage of all the freebies available to try out products before you spend money on them. There is a list of baby freebies on the main MSE site.

Prepare OS meals and freeze them before the baby is born so that when he/she arrives you have something easy for dinner when you can barely keep your eyes open!

Shop around for the things you do need. If you sign up to the newsletters for mothercare, mamas and papas etc you can get advance warning of when sales are on and buy the bits you do need when they are reduced.

Many items are perfectly good second hand - beg and borrow as much as you are comfortable with. Freegle / Freecycle is also very good for baby things. I got some lovely nursery curtains for our impending arrival and am now friends with the lady that gave them to me :-) She passes on baby bits and I bake her yummy cakes as a thank you! We get on very well and she has given me all sorts of tips etc.

Also NCT nearly new sales are very good for getting excellent quality second hand items at very little cost.:money:

Use cloth nappies. The modern cloth nappies are fantastic. They are easy to use, environmentally friendly and cost much less than disposables. We will have spent about £300 on a set of cloth nappies and accessories (and you can spend less than this if you want to - it just depends on your budget and requirements) which will last until our little one is potty trained. In comparison, disposables for a baby costs about £400 per year. Multiply this by approx 2.5 years until they are potty trained (=£1000) and you can see the savings that can be made. If you then have another child, it is an even bigger saving as the cloth nappies can be reused for your second baby. :T
Use reusuable wipes instead of disposables (similar principle to cloth nappies).
The website www.thenappylady.co.uk was recommended to me and as very helpful. OH and I also visited the 'Clean Green Nappy Machine' shop in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire which was very good, and worth a visit if you are anywhere near. They have a website - just google the shop name).

Get advice from friends / family / websites etc about what you REALLY need for the baby. The 'essentials' lists you are given in many of the shops (23 million baby grows, 3 bottle warmers, special towels etc) are a load of twoddle.:)

A friend who has recently had a baby very kindly did a list for me on what she had in terms of clothes, equipment etc, and it proved invaluable. You can, of course, adjust it to what suits you best. I;m keeping a similar list for when my friends start to have babies (and also so i can keep track of the cost of things).

I hope that helps, and apologies if it isn't all strctly OS. The 'moneysaving in marriages, relationships and families forum has some pregnancy threads which you may find useful.

Take care, and congratulations!

Ali x

ginnyknit

My Dd has just had a true MSE baby, all she bought was a pram! All her friends have passed on clothes and equipement. She joined Tesco's and sainsbury's baby clubs. I checked on here and gave her loads of links which she followed and has the best dressed baby in town. Now she is parcelling the stuff he has grown out of and passed it on again. The pound shops have some good stuff in too.

radiohelen

OS babies are the best kind . I have been trying to raise mine OS, he's 22 months now and none the worse for the preloved stuff he wears, the proper home cooked meals he eats and the second hand toys he plays with.
Freecycle/friends/family/eBay/freebies are all good ways of getting stuff you want. It's also good to remember that you never need as much as you think you do.
With reusable nappies - try before you buy if you can. Our council lends out nappy buckets with loads of different ones in.
You can go as far with this as you like but it's always good to bear in mind that no eco/OS sensibility is worth losing your sanity/good temper over.
I've got a blog about bringing up my little recycledbaby.co.uk which might give you some ideas. (Not selling anything! Just blogging)

Pink.

Hi Lauren,

There are lots of tips and advice on this thread:

Having a baby Old Style???

I'll add your thread to it once you've had some more replies to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

mumto1_2

You do need a changing mat, (cloth) nappies, crib, clothes + blankets and a car seat... everything else after that is only necessary if you need/want to use it. I couldn't have just had a sling (barely used) as my back was too bad to carry my LO in a sling when he was born. But I know many peeps only have bought a sling and not had a pram. Clothes from ebay, a pram from a car boot/second-hand baby store/charity shop ( NOT off ebay - too many horror stories), moses basket, monitor, toys can all be found second-hand - or ask g-parents/friends to buy as gifts. We didn't bother with a bottle warmer, (tried one while away, it took too long!) but grobags are fab (not every LO likes them) and tho the web-cam monitor looked fun, it was £70. We did get a cot-bed rather than a cot so will last longer for the same price if you've got the room already.

Do be prepared with a bottle and formula (a few tetra-paks) for emergency feeding - not everyone can BF, I had to give up as I couldn't produce enough milk.
For nappies, I tried this scheme - it was fab: http://www.plushpants.co.uk/category/Cloth%20Nappies/sub_cat/The%20Cloth%20Nappy%20Trial%20Scheme.html - we had 5 types of nappies for 2 weeks once the baby was born then sent them back and bought the ones we wanted.

HTH