Help/advice please - for a mum to be

painted_lady

Totally agree with Izzybusy, our baby fit in moses basket for 10 weeks, they cost a lot of money new. They look cute in them, but We had ours given, I am too MSE to buy one, would have gone in the free cot otherwise.
Thanks Izzy for advise on nappies, I will try them on my boy.

jo1972

Congratulations!!

I definately agree with Izzy and painted lady, if I were you I'd compile a list of things you think you need to have for the baby and put it on here and people will give their opinions. I reckon you'll find that 3/4 of it you won't need.

I've got 3 kids, think I used the baby bath once...it's currently a toy 'box', has been a laundry overflow 'basket' in the past! I found that it was impossible to fill/empty without slopping water all over the place so ended up using it in the bath itself, what's the point? Plus I used to love having my kids in the bath with me, dh would take them off me to dry or if he wasn't around I'd stick the buggy by the bath covered in towels and lower the baby into it while I jumped out.

Do not even THINK of buying a nappy bin, one of those things you have to keep buying liners for!

Definately don't buy co-ordinating stuff for the nursery unless you really can afford to fork out the money, after all the visitors have popped in and said 'awwww' that's the end of the benefits, the baby won't ever notice it and neither will you after a few weeks of living with it.

Good luck, I'm sure they'll be plenty of others along with good advice soon

*vanessa*

You can have co-ordinating if you buy via e-bay, lots of people sell the collection together or you can buy it piece by piece.

If you are thinking of using a childminder, I'd suggest you start looking now, Two of my friends are childminders and they have no spaces until 2009!!
Congratulations on your news, its a very exciting time, I remember it well!

Another thing you could ask for as a present is a car seat - they can cost a fortune!

Vanessa
xx

RAS

Hi

join your local groups on https://www.freecycle.org. People give away loads of baby gear and preggie clothes.

floss2

Also, see if there is a notice board at your ante-natal/baby clinic for baby stuff

or maybe you will befriend someone who has their baby before you, and end up with their newborn clothes like I did!

I do think that to pay off your debts now will enable you to start with a clean slate, and reducing your outgoings may give you chance to have a trial of how you will manage on less money coming in.

Good luck!

Yorkshirechick

Thanks everyone for your replies. We're trying to get things bit by bit at the moment. We did buy a travel system off Ebay the other day for £70 that we had seen in Mothercare the week before for £280! My aunty has given us a cot and some other bits, and we have been buying things like vests and sleepsuits when we go to the supermarket - a couple at a time. We're also putting £5 on a savings card when we go to the supermarket too, so that by the time the baby arrives we will have enough for all the nappies/toiletries an other stuff we need.
I think we'll manage to get the baby everything he/she needs for their arrival, it's more the ongoing costs of childcare with a lower wage that I'm worried about ...

kj*daisy

You should get tax credits as well, which is double for the first year, so about £80 a month as well as child benefit. Also when you go back to work see if your work does childcare vouchers. You sacrifice some of your salary and get vouchers instead. BUt you don't pay tax and NI on that amount - up to £243 a month. It saves me about £70 a month in tax and NI and you can both get them, so saving double that. Just have to ask your employers if they will do them and check the childcare provider you choose registers to accept them.
Your spending money is quite high each month, knock it down by £50 each should be fairly painless.
We dropped loads in income when I had my first but have managed somehow. We had enough for bills just stopped going out as much.

chevalier

My main bug bear is shoes. DON'T buy them. Why does clarks want you to buy them? Because they look cute, and they have all this guff about crawl shoes and all this. Why BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM MONEY! It is far better for baby to wear NO shoes until they can walk. All in one snow suits sort out the problem of cold in the winter and they look cute too.

Agree with everyone else about accepting second hand. I hardly bought anything clothes wise for DS1 for about 18 months because I had two families giving me their boys clothes! Fantastic.

The only thing that I insisted on buying new was the car seat. But even then we managed to get an end of range one from Mothercare for very little

I too would pay off the debt. Because there is one less thing to remember when you are both zombies from lack of sleep! Ok maybe the 0% sofa could stay, but if you don't pay this off then it is still worth tucking the money away so that you have it there and then when the time comes to repay it.

Once you have done that. Start trying to live on just your OH wage plus statutory maternity pay now. That way you have already gone through the pain of readjustment NOW, before the little one starts robbing you of your sleep and your reason! (Yes I know they are cute as well and all worth it, I wouldn't have had a second one otherwise!)

Congratulations
chev

painted_lady

Just read my post back, excuse my typing errors!
Agree with Chev re: Shoes. There is evidence that there is a link between wearing hard shoes too early and dyslexia. Only wear shoes when baby is starting to walk. My baby only wears socks or soft booties atm.