Baby products/stage 2

[99donnachris99]

Hello,
we are currently half way through our stage 2 and are going to panel early May. When we went on training in Stage 1 some of the trainers said to start buying things and getting ready for your child’s arrival other trainers have said not to buy anything. We really want to be prepared as on some occasions your new arrival could be quite close to the panel date and we just want to be prepared.
Many thanks to advance

I really wouldnt buy a thing...I assume you are not linked to a child as yet?
How would you know what to buy? Even if you are hoping for say...1 boy aged 2-3, you may need a cot or a bed, may or may not need a buggy, car seats are weight/height dependant etc...
Apart from decorating a neutral bedroom, buying perhaps a cot-bed, wardrobe & dresser....there isnt much else you can buy I dont think.
Once matched to a child the shopping is really exciting and so worth the wait - plus you know what items they will bring with them (often babies come with their cot mattress as FC cannot reuse them).

Hope that helps?....what were you thinking of buying....

Thank you. We are looking at under 1 or concurrency. We have been looking at prams and car seat. And it would be grey so a neutral colour

I would advise not to buy anything but to have a look at everything you need and be ready to buy what you need when the time comes.

Having all these things sitting there waiting will make your wait all the more painful. For our last we got less than 24 hours notice but a neighbour had a cot we borrowed and everything else came on amazon prime within 24 hours.

I think they've been a bit cruel to you letting you think it might happen so fast. For us it ended up being 9 months from panel to first being contacted. Even with fta you'll still be talking weeks of notice.
I would buy something absolutely lovely and vastly overpriced that you can look at/stroke and treasure.
The rest of the stuff you need just make a shopping list of and amazon/online shop the lot when you need to.
Do paint, declutter etc. You might not get to do it for 3 years once you do adopt.

We've just kept our spare room grey, but have bought a couple of soft toys etc.
We were matched a week after approval panel (14th Feb) but still won't be bringing little one home until around the 14th April, so you will have time to do everything.
Even now, we have ordered the cot/wardrobe to be delivered next week, but won't take it out of the boxes until after matching panel (4th April) just in case. And I bought a nursing chair/stool and some clothes secondhand, but they weren't too expensive and we can sell on after.
As people have said, go around the shops/look online, and 'know' where you will get things from, so when things have progressed you can move quickly.

All we did was paint the nursery a neutral colour, and we were given a brand new cotbed and matching wardrobe by friends of ours. We bought nothing until we were linked and even then I was still hesitating constantly. I'm really glad we did it this way, even though there was only three months between our approval panel and then introductions starting with our LO.

Thank you all for your advise