Having a baby Old Style???

Molly41

£100-£300

I totally agree - I had my eldest son around that first time and it was hard then - I found myself a single, working mum and tax credits were just in their infancy - there is so much more help around now. I would not have survived without the help of my Grandmother and her food parcels :A
Charity shop/ car boot are brilliant for baby toys and clothes and breast feeding (although Im not pushing it but I am a trained midwife) is for free and so convenient.

[Deleted User]

under £100

Most important item a baby needs is love and bucketloads of it the rest is just dressing.I sadly lost a baby before I had my eldest DD and because of thet I had binned all the stuff that I had bought in anticipation of the babys birth.Three moths later I was pregnant for the second time and wouldn't buy anything In fact my DD had absolutely nothing to wear when she was born and my OH had to dash to Mothercares to buy stuff for her.We had been trying for three years for a child so I was very superstitious about getting anything at all.

valk_scot

My first son was born two months after we'd moved into our new house, 16% mortgage rates, I'd given up work etc etc. No spare money! My sister handed over all the baby equipment she'd been storing in her attic for the last three years so I got cot + bedding, buggy+ carrycot combo, car seat and more outgrown pink babygros and clothes than you could shake a stick at. My mum gave us £100 for other essentials like nappies, we were given quite a few gifts of clothes and toys, I breastfed him and that was basically that, nothing else required. I bought a new mattress for the cot and carrycot because that was recommended, I do know that. And some navy dye! He wore a lot of pink babygros at night though, lol.

Fast forwards seven years to my DD being born, she was planned but was a bit of a change of heart so I'd given away all my baby stuff after my second son grew out of it. We were skint again at that point but my friends, who had also mostly completed their families, emptied out their attics and I could have equipped DD three times over with car seats and cots! And lots of pink babygros again. I'd discovered NCT sales by then too which are a fabulous source of equipment and clothes.

So now, if I got pregnant again how much would I spend? (I'm 54, it ain't going to happen!) If I didn't have any second hand offers I'd be down at the NCT sales, looking at Gumtree and also the charity shops. I'd probably set myself a budget of £500 max including a new car seat, I don't mind accepting a second hand car seat from a friend I know and trust but I wouldn't buy one second hand. And a new mattress for a cot. £500 would cover buggy/pram, cot, new mattress and new car seat, clothes, nappies and a sterilizer, plus any other small bits and pieces. That would see me through the first year, including more clothes as the baby grew.

One tip btw is not to take the tags off all the cute 0-3 month clothes gifts you get! You really only need a couple of outfits for going out in over the first few weeks, it's much better for the baby to spend the day in a babygrow if indoors, it's more comfortable than being dressed up like a doll all the time. Take all the extra wee outfits back and change them for bigger sizes, or better still credit notes or gift cards. Nowadays when I give new baby gifts I knit the baby a daft hat and stuff some money inside with a note to spend it on anything the baby might need. I personally don't care if they spend it on a box of nappies or a wind up penguin.


Oh, nursery decoration byw. I think that's where a lot of pointless money gets spent, on making a nice gift box for the baby. Which the baby won't appreciate anyway, it would much rather be with mum 24/7. I painted our nursery pale yellow and bout a remnant of fabric for curtains, it had zoo animals on it so I bought a child's colouring in book and used it to make stencils for animals, then made a border round the walls using match pots for the colours. And I painted up some junk shop furniture and stencilled it too. We've still got one chest of drawers with elephants on it! Once I'd finished it looked as good as any of the ones with everything bought co-ordinated at great expense from the shops and I could add to it later on. And I didn't mind when the boys drew their own animals on as well, not much anyway!

Oscar_the_Pug

Just wanted to bump this thread. If anyone's had a baby recently would they mind sharing info about the travel system they used? We're planning to go OS and will get much 2nd hand, but I understand it's recommended to get the car seat brand new, and I'm totally confused!

optimistic-mummy

£300-£600

Oscar_the_Pug wrote: »

Just wanted to bump this thread. If anyone's had a baby recently would they mind sharing info about the travel system they used? We're planning to go OS and will get much 2nd hand, but I understand it's recommended to get the car seat brand new, and I'm totally confused!

travel systems/prams/pushchairs are all different and all meet different requirements things to consider :

how big is your boot - if its small you will need a compact pushchair

do you want the pushchair to be able to face you when they are no longer in a carrycot or carseat - if so you want one that can be parent facing

do you want your newborn lying flat as much as possible - if so a carrycot is a great option

do you want to be able to clip your car seat onto your pushchair chassis again this is something to think about although they recommend for newborns to be in car seats as little as possible

will you mainly be using it in the city or country again this would affect what type of pushchair is best for you .... if in the country look for an all terrain pushchair/pram

another thing to consider is whether the pram is 2 single handles or a bar handle i mention this because if you have other children you will need to consider when out and about holding the other child's hand while still being in full control of the pushchair for people with other young children a bar handled pushchair would make life easier as they are easier to steer with one hand

height adjustable handle me and my partner are nearly a ft apart in height and me being petite i know this is something i will need

i think that is it my brain is like mush atm so i do appolagise if i have missed anything....

in answer to your question on what travel system. i had a 3 in 1 ... this was because :
it was a compact fold
parent facing
large shopping basket
height adjustable handle
carrycot and carseat compatible - included with the purchase
it was a city pram - although we live in a village we mainly used it getting to shops etc .... no fields to cross to get there

search eBay, gumtree, your local paper, Fac*book sale pages, carboots all have great second hand pushchairs and baby items


HTH

Downsizing__for_sanity

The main reason they recommend the car seats are brand new are because you need to know that they haven't ever been involved in an accident. (Another is because the filling/foam stuff can deteriorate after a certain amount of time apparently). However, it wouldn't stop me buying a used one from a friend or friend of a friend if I was sure it was ok. We also have a local Facebook group so for example I can see that someone selling someone is a friend (or a friend of a friend) if you know what I mean.

honeythewitch

The poll must be useless now because prices have probably doubled since 2005 when it started.:D

optimistic-mummy

£300-£600

i did the poll end of last year and they merged that thread with this one. the only reason i started another thread was mainly because prices change and a lot of the threads were dating back about 5 years ago or more and prices have changed since then. but they merged it anyway.

although people have added great input since this thread was started 8 years ago surely its time for a new one x

Oscar_the_Pug

Totally agree it's time to resurrect this one! Since I posted so long ago we've now sorted out a pram - we got the Oh Baby Zezu when it was on offer from Boots as our priorities were to have one that was parent facing, had a carrycot and a single, height adjustable bar. However it's massive, so as soon as the bambino is big enough for a fold up buggy that's what we'll get!

flyingmamma

Does anyone use reusable nappies? I'm on baby 3 now and I was just thinking about the nappies we hav used over the past 4 yrs ! Dd2 is 12 wks I was wondering if I shud try them or will they be horrible to wash etc???? Weather appalling most of the year so wud probably hav to tumble them too!