How would you spend "baby bonding money"?

[thenorthernluce]

My husband's workplace gives its employees £300 baby bonding money when they/their partner give birth. It's a cash gift, and there are no rules about what it is to be spent on.

I'm giving birth to our first child in August, so we will be the lucky recipients of this generous gift. I was hoping to tap Mumsnetters' experience to work out how to spend this money, so my question is: when you had a newborn, what services or goods would have made/did make your life a little easier and enabled quality baby bonding time?

Thank you!

[Aliveinwanderland]

National Trust membership so you can have family days out together?

[ifigoup]

Posh ready meals from somewhere like COOK.
A couple of nicer takeaways.
When the baby's a bit bigger, from 4 or 5 months, a short course of classes like Baby Sensory or Adventure Babies or swimming lessons.

[iMatter]

A nanny for a few days so I could get some kip?

A cleaner?

[00100001]

That's annoying. What about people who can't have kids? When do they get their £300? Do you get £300 per child? Or is it a one off?

[Crispmonster1]

National trust or English heritage membership. Or save it for a night in a nice hotel for after baby is born...

[NapQueen]

Id put it away for an extended rear facing carseat when they outgrow their infant seat, but im boring

Annual passes to places is a great suggestion - any zoos or safari parks nearby?

[Spudlet]

That's a really nice policy!

I'd second a bit of help around the house (nice food, or maybe a cleaner) then save some for a class or two as they can get really expensive.

[Grumpbum]

Put aside, wait until you feel comfortable to leave baby and have a night away

[Fluffy24]

What a lovely gesture OP, wish my employer did that

[GinIsIn]

Gin, and a cleaner, and more gin. And also, a cleaner.

[Crisscrosscranky]

I agree with NT/EH membership for days out - family membership is about £100.

I'd have one of those fancy newborn photoshoots too where they pose them in funny hats etc - I know some people think they are a bit tacky but I love them!

[MommaGee]

Second Grumpbum, use it as a treat for the two of you to do something or a few things together. If I waited till I could leave him overnight it'd accrue a grand in interest :-D but money for a nice meal out etc or a cheap weekend away with baby

[Honeybee79]

A night away in a posh hotel when baby is older and can be left with a relative etc overnight!

[BumWad]

That's annoying. What about people who can't have kids? When do they get their £300? Do you get £300 per child? Or is it a one off?

Oh bog off

[Crunchymum]

Is this for each child?

[MommaGee]

0010000 That's annoying. What about people who can't have kids? When do they get their £300? Do you get £300 per child? Or is it a one off?
By that argument also ban paid maternity or paternity leave because when will other people get it if they don't have children?

[ems137]

I'd probably buy something practical like a cot or posh bouncer or the next stage car seat. But we don't have a lot of money so any of those things we need to save hard for and £300 would be a big help to us.

If we were better off I would probably spend it on a nice photo shoot maybe?

[MissClimpsonsTypingBureau]

Pram/ travel system/ carseat was the most expensive thing we got - £300 would have been a good chunk of it. Cot and nursery furniture? It could easily pay for a side-sleeper crib if that's something you're interested in.

I guess the question is whether you want to spend it all on something treaty or whether it needs to go on essentials...

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Save it in case you need a sleep consultant. I wish I'd had 300 free quid to spend on that!

[Pastaagain78]

A cleaner and takeaways. Definitely a cleaner.

[44PumpLane]

Cleaner!

Having just had twins 21 weeks ago I can't tell you what a treat a cleaner would be, and with £300 you'd get a decent number of weeks of cleaning.

[sm40]

I got a voucher from work before ds was born for good performance. I got one of those expensive feeding chairs. 10 years later still a great tv chair!

[TotalPineapple]

Baby swimming is lovely (and expensive) we went from 10 weeks old (you can go from birth but that was how the terms fell and I've been happy with the pace of the classes corresponding to her development, I think if she was younger we might have struggled a bit when it came to learning the cues).

Baby Sensory is also good (though some of my NCT class found the American-ness annoying and prefer something called Hartbeeps). I've not done baby massage, baby sign, or baby yoga, but I'm sure those would be good for bonding too.

For a making your life easier I'd go with the Sleepyhead pod.

[Seeingadistance]

What a lovely gift!

I'd go for a gin and a cleaner, but the ideas for classes of different kinds is good as well.

[InvisibleKittenAttack]

Will your DH get full wage on Paternity leave? If not, use it to cushion the income fall?

Otherwise, a family photo shoot is a nice idea !

(With my 2DCs I've done both Baby sensory and Hartbeeps with both of them, both really depend on the teacher a lot, have had good and bad experiences - but round here, Hartbeeps do have a regular saturday session which is often full of Dads)