Having kids is an expensive business... unless you are very well off, your finances will be stretched. Here are some stuff I've learned about saving money, a little here and a ltitle there.
- Buy in BULK, especially for the following items
- Nappies, get the 4 to 8kg size, more than you would get Newborn size. The Newborn size won't last you very long. Kaitlyn was in newborns for 2.5 weeks, but wore 4 to 8 till 16 weeks.
- Baby wipes, unless you are using cloths and water to clean your baby's bottoms (good on you if you are), you can NEVER have too many baby wipes
- Formula can also be bought in bulk. Most pharmacies have cartons of formula (6 or 12 cans). It all adds up
- DO read the catelogues from shops, there just MAY be some savings every now and then
- Baby clothes:
- if you plan on having more than one kid, buy gender neutral colours, such as white, green and yellow.
- Don't buy too many newborn sizes (00000 or 0000) as they grow out of sizes VERY quickly
- Buy onesies (jump suits), we found that Kaitlyn had worse collic/reflux when she wore pants or anything that constricts her tummy when she was little. As she got older, she pulls off her pants all the time and tries to take off her nappy. So buy jump suits, so it will stay on
- Hand-me-downs are great. If you can get old clothes from someone who no longer need them, they are better than new clothes. Baby prefers soft old colthes
- Buy Preen and NappySan OxyAction. It will help to get rid of all sort of stains that you are destined to have for the next 18 years...
- Baby's Toys:
- Colourful is good
- Try to avoid battery operated things. Baby gets bored of blinking lights just as quickly as anything else that doesn't blink. You will save a bundle on replacement batteries
- If you must have battery operated things, buy rechargeable batteries
- The following we NEEDed:
- Walker (we have a sit in one and a pusher). I wish we had them earlier
- Rocking chair (no need for fancy lights and music, baby is as happy in cheap bouncer without any gadgets)
- doll or teddy
- balls
- The following we wish we didn't get:
- A rocker/baby swing. It was only good for getting kaitlyn to do no.2 when she's slightly constipated
- baby mobiles, the stuff that spins and hangs in the cot. We had to remove everything from her cot because she wasn't sleeping
- pram toys. Maybe we are lucky with Kaitlyn, but she doesn't need pram toys to be entertained when we are out
- Everything else that uses lots of batteries...
- Household items make great toys, such as:
- cardboards
- boxes
- measuring cups
- junk mail
- old/unused remote controls
- Baby's "educational" stuff (books, dvds etc.)
- Kaitlyn loves her books. So we have quite a number of books.
- 0-3 months: we used flash cards. Kaitlyn mainly just stared at them, occassionally played with them
- 3-6 months: we started reading her the same bedtime story (still do). And she prefers cardboard books and clothes books
- 6-12 months: She likes all of her books, cardboard, clothes, flippies, pop-ups, foam. She loves the "peek-a-boo" book, where she could flip out the pages and reveal things underneath. She just started pulling out flash cards and pointing at the pictures and giggles
- We have the entire Baby Eistein Collection and many Chinese DVDs. These are good in small doses. Kaitlyn giggles and laughs a lot with the baby Eistein DVDs
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