Is the Baby Show worth going to?

[RightUpMyRue]

Just been sent a flyer for it. Anyone been?

[ZuleikaD]

Depends whether you want to spend an exhausting and footsore day having people try to sell you stuff. I think you can get samples and so on but IMO you're better off doing research on the internet. Mumsnet reviews are good and then you don't have someone from MyBabyAmazing or whatever standing in front of you telling you that Your Baby Will Be Miserable And Wrong unless you buy their product.

[RightUpMyRue]

Ha ha! I thought it probably would be a bit like that.

It's on the same weekend as the Star Trek convention. I think we'll stick with original plans and go to that instead

[MayimBialik]

I think it's useful if you have a list of essentials that you need to get and a clear idea of the cheapest price you could get them for then you can search them out and then see if they are selling them for any less.

That's what we did and made quite a saving. We were in and out dead quick, didn't stop at stalls that had nothing we were interested in - just got the necessaries and saved about £100

[Pascha]

I'm combining the smaller, cheaper, probably a bit crapper baby & toddler show at bluewater in 2 weeks time with the opportunity for a child-free day (thanks MIL), a nice lunch and the only christmas shopping I have any plans to do

[PicklesThePottyMouthedParrot]

I went to one and it was pants, I have my details to all the free draws and got hounded for months. Sometimes they demo good things though.

[mom2rhysnruby]

Nooo!!! Waste of money
The only 'freebies' i got were leaflets for shops..
Save your money and shop online :) x

[blooblies]

Now on baby 3, I would say to steer clear of anything baby-related, including magazines. They are full of expensive stuff that you feel you should have which, if you never knew about, you would manage fine without. An inordinate amount of precious dwindling brainspace was taken up with such nonsense with my #1.

[ZuleikaD]

The Star Trek Convention sounds like a much awesomer option!

[8abyDust]

I found it exhausting BUT made a massive saving on our travel system.

[zigwig]

I'm voting for the star trek convention

[Badgerina]

It's on the same weekend as the Star Trek convention. I think we'll stick with original plans and go to that instead

Yes.

[whatsoever]

My friends went to the Manchester one & saved a fortune. They had a cunning method - get prices from stallholders for all the big stuff they wanted & then get Mothercare to price match.

Would have been useless for me though, at no point during my pregnancy could I have been on my feet all day and I'm a crap barterer.

[philbee]

Agree with blooblies 100%. I chucked the bounty pack in the bin on the way home from booking in appt, just a load of advertising for stuff no one needs. Basically you need clothes, nappies, wipes, muslins, something to feed the baby, some means of transport and somewhere for the baby to sleep. All the rest is bollocks or you can get it online later.

[RightUpMyRue]

Thank you all. This is my second baby and although DD was a baby a long time ago I do remember not needing much in the beginning except for what I already had -my boobs She was bought a cot and a moses basket, neither of which she went in, she was in with me from day 1 in hospital, and a baby bath which soon got ditched because she came in with me, it was just easier to bathe us both at the same time. So I won't be going out and spending a fortune on unecessaries.

The one thing I wanted to do shopping around on is the pram. They have seriously moved on since DD's babyhood so I'm a bit clueless with them. I thought the BabyShow might be quite a good place to see lots of prams all in one place and get to have a go with them before we make a choice.

I'll probably just end up scouring the prams and pushchairs threads on here and will make do with a few shopping trips out to Mothercare, Mamas and Papas and John Lewis to find The One.

I also binned the vast majority of the Bounty Pack, what a load of cack.