to expect money gifts before baby not after

[grumpydopeysleepy]

DPs and DPILs were overjoyed to hear they were going to be grandparents, and said early on they'd rather just give us money so we could get what we needed. Due date has arrived and we're all ready for baby.

We've had to just go ahead and buy everything ourselves (mostly 2nd hand) as neither offer has materialised. I'm sure once baby pops out they'll get round to it and I'd never dream of mentioning it, but it might have made a difference to what we could afford. I don't mind 2nd hand but would have liked certain things new, especially as we hope to go on to have more children.

Am I allowed to be just a bit miffed?

If it saves you from buying an £800 pram it is a good thing IMO! Save it for university fees and get second hand!

Exactly A1980, a baby doesn't care if their cot is designer or not, in my experience babies just want to sleep in the bed with their mummy anyway!

It is the one time that your DCs couldn't care less where the stuff came from and the cost of bringing up a DC is enormous-and will be even more when university tuition fees go up. Perhaps the grandparents realise this and don't want you frittering it away on cots and prams when you can easily pick up lovely cheap second hand ones.
A baby doesn't care if it is a designer cot, your bed or a drawer! Make the most of it-by the time it is 5 it will have it's own ideas and be more fussy!

Among a lot of the older generation there's huge superstition about buying stuff before the baby arrives. Someone I used to work with had her babies in the 80's and the shop she ordered her pram from refused to let her take it home til the baby arrived!

I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting til the baby's born as that was the norm in their day and they're oblivious to you fretting.

dh and I weren't expecting any money from our parents and bought everything ourselves. They both gave us a cheque when dd1 arrived which we were surprised about and put them into her trust fund for her.

As others have said, there's plenty of other things you'll need as the baby grows up and you can't really dictate the terms of gifts.

"30 years ago people didnt buy £800 pram systems" - just want to pick you up on this A1980 - while a pram 30+ years ago wasn't £800, when I was looking at prams, my Mum was impressed at how reasonable they were - she remembers being v greatful that her PIL bought a pram when she had my older brother 35 years ago - she couldn't find anyone locally selling one second hand (no Ebay to buy second hand from across the country!) and a new one would be nearly what my Dad earned in a month. At that point he was a teacher and had been teaching for 8 years, so not on a bad wage.

Mind you, it lasted for me too, and she said she handed it on to a friend who used it for her 2 DCs too, so it might have been a higher quality than most ones you can buy now...