Emotionally attached to baby stuff

[MummaBubba123]

I've started to declutter. It's like an addiction (hoarding). I buy too much and then cling onto it as if it were a raft at sea. Old boots, fake bags... and baby things: toys, clothes, a bouncer, etc. I'm scared that now I've started to declutter, I'll fall off the wagon and into cluttering again. I really was depressed. It's as if my clutter lives inside my head!
I was wondering whether there is anyone who lives near me who'd like to be de-clutter buddies. I'd come to you one day and you'd come up me another (children/ child care permitting). Or someone who'd just take pity on a person who has no idea how to declutter without hanging onto 'rafts'.
I have now organised my 'rafts' into a section called 'My Ebay Pile'. I've booked a lady to come over to take it. Doubt she will want it. I've even put stuff on selling FB groups but changed my mind when people contacted me about items. Hopeless!
Please don't tell me to just dump it all.
Crap crap crap

Oh - and the 'letting go of baby clothes n toys thing' - v hard. Especially since my daughter is still only 2 so not sure whether I'm relinquishing stuff too early.

Oh god. I sorted my baby stuff i to two piles about a month ago - one to keep and one or charity. I've made no effort at all to give any to charity. I don't know why I'm keeping any at all as I'm no planning to have another baby. I just can't seem to do it. Its all pretty standard stuff - supermarket clothes etc. but I really don't want to part with it.

Not helpful, sorry. I know how you feel though.

Terrible typing sorry (small phone and fat fingers)

Lol
Glad to hear I'm not alone, EGA!

I had to wait till mine were 18 before I could get rid of baby stuff

I have kept DD's little sunhat and DS's first babygro though.

How about taking photos of the items and then getting rid of them? You won't have completely lost them then.

If you feel particularly fond of some baby clothes or blankets you can send them off to be made into a patchwork blanket or patchwork teddy which you can keep instead of all the old clothes as it's much smaller & you can put it on display. It sounds weird but actually is quite a good idea I reckon. Of course you could always do it yourself if you're into sewing.

I had to let dh do it. I couldn't face it.

On the plus side we have given a load to DSil so hopefully we will get to see some of it used again.

You really do have to be ruthless though. Tis the only way.

Good advice! I like the patchwork teddy idea! Wonder where I can get that done as I'm only good for sewing buttons and holes! Lol
... and then there's my Ebay Mountain. I could earn well from it if I actually bothered to tackle it!

I am a very minimalist decluttery person by nature... But where DS is concerned I'm really struggling to get rid of anything, I keep shoving it all in the loft.

Baby stuff is very hard to let go of. My DDs are 11 and I have kept their cots and high chairs, you know in case they need them. Few bits of clothes, the cutest unstained ones. I have managed to let go of things like travel cots, baby gyms, toddler size ride along toys, baby cutlery etc. What really spurred me on was pressure from MIL to have more children than I felt comfortable with.

Sorry, I can't offer practical help as I'm not even in the UK now, just wanted to add to the voices saying you are not alone in hanging on to baby things.

My Mum kept all my baby clothes as she couldn't bear to part with them. It has meant that DD has a very vintage look to many of her clothes . I'm not planning on having any more DC yet we put everything in the loft 'just incase'

My mum keeps producing mine and my siblings old clothes for DS. Some of them must have looked pretty dodgy in the 80s and are always mysteriously 'in the wash' when she comes round! So keep them and provide entertainment for your children in the future

X-post

Ha, Reastie, your grandchildren will be so grateful to wear clothes which are a couple of decades out of date
Although looking at some of my old photos, I quite like 80s baby wear, lots of knitted dresses etc Not nearly so much pink sparkly shite!

OP, whereabouts are you roughly? I doubt very much that you are in my neck of the woods, but I'd love to help if I could

Decades?! I meant generations

whispers trends will come around again . I think it's fine for baby clothes but I'm not sure what DD will say when she's 8 or so and I'm trying to get her to wear my tatty old clothes

Herts.

Ok. So thanks to your advice everyone, I'm
Keeping baby clothes in the fridge. Now, what do I do about the toys? Piles and piles of tots that I have no time to ebay - but paid far too much to give away! Hoarding = holding into time ;)
For me, anyway!

Ah, that's a shame, if we'd been having this conversation 6 years ago, I would have come to help as I was living in Beds and working in Herts! No help to you now though
Have you thought about doing an nct sale for the toys, not nearly as much work as ebaying, although you do risk bringing some (and more ) home again.

OP, I like your idea of "declutter buddies!" I'm on the far side of the world so no use to you, but I hope someone will turn up.

I hung onto baby stuff until youngest DC was five when we moved abroad and put all our UK household stuff into storage. I really didn't want to pay more money than necessary for the storage (every cubic metre adds up etc). That really concentrated the mind and I gave away bagloads of clothes, bedding and toys to friends and charity shops. If I hadn't had that decluttering deadline I think the moses basket full of tiny clothes would still be wedged under the bed.

Regarding the toys that you haven't time to ebay but can't just give away because they cost too much, I would say just give most of them away anyway. You have got your use out of them and they are now taking up valuable space in your house. They are also taking up valuable space in your head because the ebay pile is another huge job on the to-do list. So maybe just let go of it? Console yourself with the thought that, as your DD is only two, there will be loads more toycrap pouring in through the door for years to come.

One final point, it is hard to get rid of baby clobber if you feel your family is not complete yet. I remember a friend selling me her pushchair then changing her mind a day later in tears, because the presence of the pushchair in her house represented the possibility of a third baby, and selling it kind of destroyed the possibility in a way, so she wanted to hang onto it. That was the gist of it anyway. (She did have another baby some years later). Emotions trip us up when we are trying to be hard-headedly sensible about possessions.

OMG! Just re-read my last comment! In the FRIDGE?!
Lol
Loft- not fridge!
It was late.

'Toycrap' lol
Sadly, no more babies- had a molar pregnancy that scared me witless and now, thank gd,have a pink and blue one. Husband also says 'shop closed'... but I'd loooove another baby ;(

Mumma if you're on Facebook, Handmade by Laura does some lovely animals out of babygros. Her waiting list is about a year though...

Aha. I thought the fridge comment was something very wise about storing textiles for years, that they had to be kept cold and dark! Maybe they do, actually, but it seemed like a waste of your kitchen fridge, filling it up with old babygros when you could have lovely things to eat and drink in there.