Could you please add to my list of must-haves for my yet-to-be born DC?

[1charlie1]

Following on from my 'best vests for newborns' thread, I would so appreciate your ideas of what DH and I need to add to our current purchases for our DC (due in April, but will be a Winter baby, because we'll be in Oz by then. And in Melbourne, so it's chilly. Not as chilly as Winter here, but pretty darn cold all the same.)

We currently have:

2 x 1-2 month old popper long-sleeved vests

2 x 2-4 month old popper long-sleeved vests. I know this isn't enough vests, but have no idea of the amount needed for each age group, so stopped there until I'd sought advice from Mumsnet!

2 x slings (Kangas)

1 x Ergo baby carrier with newborn insert

12 x packets Waterwipes [they were £2.25 each from NCT, and are $7.58 from the only supermarket chain in Oz which sells them - so expensive in Oz! How long does a packet last, in general? Debating whether to get loads more to put in our shipping container...but again, not sure how many we need until the baby can go on to regular baby wipes?]

That's it so far! I guess we'll need a change mat, and a car seat (will be bought in Oz, as UK car seats are illegal to fit in Australian vehicles.) Going to try to be pram free, and see how that goes. But I have no idea the amount of basics we need, or how long babies take to grow out of things. I want to buy as much as possible in the UK, because Oz is great if you're earning dollars, but pretty dire if you're spending pounds, which we will be for at least a while. Any suggestions much appreciated!

oh and look for sleepsuits with integral foldover scratch mitts. next definitely do them. my little one just wouldn't keep normal scratch mitts on. he was v active from newborn hence blankets not working on the car seat in our case.

Bath thermometer is a good idea.

If you go down the cloth wipes route (and can recommend), then don't follow the instructions and leave them wet as they quickly go manky. We hung them up to dry/put on radiator and just had a stack of dry ones to use as and when needed. We used a thermos jug which could be filled up with hot water from the bathroom in the morning, and would last all day, a tupperware bowl and you're sorted

Definitely going to try the easing the poosplosion vest down the shoulders rather than over the head this time round!

Boots were good for washable pads - get a few packs if you can as I always seemed to run out as I'd forgotten to wash them. They come in a little net bag to keep them all together. Eco rainbow on facebook sell nice soft minky ones if you fancy splashing out a bit.

If you do go for a pushchair try a few out first and then find second hand, the one I went for (oyster), buckled everytime it went down a kerb onto the road

Bundlers, nighties whatever they see called are brilliant.
All mine hated Moses baskets but loved carrycot.
Chocolate for you.
Baby cardigans.
Don't buy too much because you will either be able to go shopping or internet shop for the things that are useful.
Also the less you can manage with then the less stuff you will need to tidy , wash or find. Children soon fill houses with vast amounts of kit!

Oh yes, seconding the never putting a baby in a coat/snowsuit and then in a carseat. It's really dangerous, as you can't pull the straps that tight, but in a crash the force compresses them against the padded clothes and so effectively your baby has really loosely attached straps and gets thrown about. You need them when icy for a sling (and Melbourne is COLD in winter, I agree - you can go skiing quite nearby) but never in a car seat.

Sorry if this has already been said but the best deal I've found on baby bundlers is at M&S where they are 2 for £10

I didn't know about them with DS but I'm 32 weeks pregnant again and this time I'm prepared for the night changes!!

We did not buy much (not much money at the time). We scoured jumble sales and got a lot of vests, and baby gros for virtually nothing. You can easily go through 6 vests and 6 baby gros in one day (I kid you not) as babies leak from every turn and you are so exhausted putting on the washer every day (which is essential) is difficult. However some relatives might buy you or pass you down things.

Other than that (the basic clothing), we bought no bottles (as not bottle fed) but did buy a carry cot or moses basket for it to sleep in although plenty of parents sleep with their baby so even that is not necessarily essential although helpful to have somewhere safe to put a baby when you're busy.

We just washed it in the bath so no special baby bath. We did find a baby bouncer useful as you can put it in there after a bit and pushing it up and down with your foot whilst doing something else.We never had things like a special towel - they can just use your own.

Sleep suits! For the first couple of weeks your baby will just live in sleep suits. No point getting them dressed into clothes because they spend most of their time fast asleep or feeding. I bought countless baby grows that just stayed in the packet because my DS had grown out of newborn by the time I started to dress him in the day. Although I did have a very long 8lb 12 baby.

12 vests, 12 sleepsuits. Unless you want to do washing every day.

It depends how often you wash, but i would say 6-8 sleep suits and vests. Our baby grew SO fast and still is at 6 months (in 9-12 m stuff now) so we had so many clothes that were unworn. It's depressing to thing how much money we wasted :( If you need more, you can always buy more when the baby arrives.

Socks. Ones with long stretchy cuffs. Esp if it's chilly as your baby will get chilly feet in a sling.

2 Cardigans. And perhaps one of those fleecy suits for outdoors? I'm not sure how cold it will be.

Car seat.

Def look into reusable wipes and nappies. I'm ASTOUNDED how much those water wipes are! Thats about a tenner off the full kit of cheeky wipes and you would have had wipes to potty training and beyond! I believe Gnappies are an oz company and i've heard really good stuff about their nappies.

Muslin squares.

Largeish soft blankets (at least 2) which are also suitable for swaddles, like celular blankets. Many pre-shaped swaddles don't allow for healthy-hip swaddling.

We use a folded up towel for a changing mat.
Washed in the sink and then in a bucket which he looooved!
Bath thermometers are silly imo. You can feel if a bath is too hot with your hand!

Lahsinoh if you're planning on breastfeeding. If you don't end up using it on your nips, it makes great lip balm!

Cot if you're not going to co-sleep. As i said, DS would have lasted about 2 weeks in a moses basket! We got a £35 ikea cot and i couldn't recommend it highly enough! If you get a cot, the anglecare baby monitor is invaluable. It was the most expensive piece of kit we bought, but it's given me so much piece of mind with the movement monitor.

Thats it. Not much ay ;)

I can't feel if a bath is too hot for a baby with my hand, because I like them scalding hot myself - I still use the thermometer to bathe my 5 year old, because to me 40 is about the right temp for a nice cool bath, with 43 ideal.... and he wails at anything over 38! I think the advice to use your elbow rather than your hand indicates it's a common issue. I suppose it depends on what your own preference for bathing temperature is?

I'd usually agree on not buying more than you need, but as the cost of everything is so very much higher these days in Australia than it is in the UK (and they don't have the same sort of mega supermarkets we do), and you can buy multipacks of sleepsuits for a few quid in our huge supermarkets, I'd say to take at least 12 at each age. Apart from anything else, you may need to wash less, and the cost of buying the suits is far less than washing them, over their use. So fewer washes means less cost. And if you have a reflux baby, who brings up a massive torrent of milk with each feed, you can be changing more than 8 times a day in the earliest weeks. We were.

Agree totally on not needing a baby bath or a change mat. Total waste of money. Baby towels are, too - a normal bath towel is fine for drying a baby. And as mentioned, cheeky wipes are just a very expensive way of buying face flannels, though a saving on wipes. These from IKEA are cheap as chips and do the job just as well. I used water wipes when out and about, as I didn't want to be lugging pooey wipes around, but at home we used reusables.

Finally, Angelcare baby monitors have been recalled in the USA and Canada because they've killed a couple of babies. I wouldn't get one, myself.

I was thinking about the difference in costs between the countries, which I think are hard to grasp if unused to them: those flannels from IKEA are £3 here, which is $5.31. Yet the same flannels are $7.99 in Aussie IKEA, which is £4.45. That sort of markup applies across the board.

Things have completely reversed in terms of costs of living between the two since the global financial crash. In 2004, £40 bought me $100. Now, it would get me $70. So advising the OP to wait until she has the baby, and to buy things then, is to tell her not to spend 15 on an extra 6 sleepsuits (and that isn't the basics range, which would get her 9), but to spend that on 3. It doesn't seem like a sensible economy to gamble on being able to make, given she can also cut her laundry bills by having a few extras.

Just to add that I too didn't have a pram with DD, and this was after an epistiomy. It really depends on how you live: I do the weekly food shop with DH, so no lugging heavy shopping bags for me. Pkus, I'm very used to walming around. Also, you don't need to buy a wrap specially designed to carry a baby(though the do make things easier): my favorite wrap is a silk and wool mix saree with a bit of stretch (which originally belonged to my mother, and which I've previously worn. I'm hoping DD too will wear it one day. Sniff)

We found washable nappies a doddle, but I'd suggest using disposables the first few weeks, until you've found your feet a bit and the baby is past the meconium stage (which must be hell to get off nappies!)

Baby bjorn bouncer and bednest are great!

We secured the wires to the wall using cable clips there is absolutely no chance that our baby could pull them out. My DP has tried. It doesn't take a total genius to know that you don't leave dangling cables next to a baby's cot. I'm pretty sure it said in the instructions not to leave the cables loose too...

We chose cheeky wipes for a number of reasons.

1. they're so good at cleaning that you only need 1 wipe. No need for entire flannel sized piece of cloth.
2. they're a quarter of the size of flannels, so you only need a few when traveling. We cut flannels to begin with, but they just went raggedy and we had to throw them away within the first 3 weeks
3. they come with storage- a clean box, a mucky box, a mesh bag for washing and 2 travel bags. You can get the smaller kits without the mucky box, mesh bag and mucky travel bags if you're using cloth nappies as you'll already have that stuff.
4. i priced the whole kit myself (clippy storage boxes, wipes, bags, essential oils) using the cheapest items i could find on the net and it came out more expensive.

They also have great offers on every few months or so. I'm not saying don't make them yourself, but for us Cheeky wipes were the clear choice.

Most of the shops i buy from (m&s, next, sainsburys) do packs of 3 for sleepsuits and packs of 5 for vests, but if you can buy packs of 12 in Oz, then you might as well go for it.

Sorry, not more expensive, but only £6 cheaper than we got out kit for.

It's just so much cheaper, if you use the IKEA version. Same principle, but less cost - always good to me!

Sadly, over the monitor, not all parents do seem to have realised that or babies wouldn't have died - they can't be unloving parents, or they'd not have bought the monitors to start with. (That's the most heartbreaking thing of all, really. They were trying to do the best possible thing for their babies.) So the warning is worthwhile, I think. In all honesty I wouldn't get a monitor like that anyway because I'd be more anxious if I had it, in a funny way, and cot death is thankfully rare now the smoking/back to sleep campaigns have worked so well. I can see why they reassure others though. Horses for courses and all that - depends on what form your anxieties take.

You don't need the bells and whistles, you can just bung the mucky flannels in the machine. Same as nappies - why soak things in teatrea oil and a special box, when there's a nappy bucket already set? And we found a big flannel useful when breastmilk poo is like runny curry sauce...

Again, it's all about what suits different people, isn't it? We were actually given Cheeky Wipes, and thought they were a con. You think they're amazing. Same as any other product, we can only speak as we find.

Ohhh, i've just thought of another odd one- small syringes. See if you can 'borrow' some from the hosp- they gave us armfuls!

I hand expressed for the first week, so they were very handy for that, but we found them really good for administering medicine and infacol rather than those stupid spoons!!

Another one for you rather than baby that I forgot in my earlier post - dry shampoo! A lifesaver when you really don't have time to wash your hair every day early on.

Lavender essential oil is great for healing after birth if you have stitches or anything - is naturally antiseptic and soothing.

We used cheeky wipes AND flannels! Flannels handy for mopping up gigantic pools of wee DS used to produce as soon as his nappy was removed

Oh my goodness, the thread has taken off again! I'm sorry, I haven't responded for a while, as I just took notes when it quietened down, and haven't checked for a bit. Have been price comparing between countries to see what we can get here to ship, and what we'll wait to get there (this sounds like we're ahem I'm going nuts, really not, just getting a few things which are cheaper here, and most importantly, recommended on this thread). But I bought my 'sock ons' from Mothercare the other day (someone highly recommended them upthread, and as we'll be slinging/ baby wearing with little feet constantly hanging out, I thought they seemed a great idea), and they're 20% off today! I would have saved enough for a nice coffee...

Just about to read all the other lovely suggestions, brilliant, thanks!!

I've got mock ons as well to keep ds's legs and feet warm when in the sling, but am in Scotland and its freezing, he's going in his fleecy waterproof sling cover very soon.

Glad you got the sock ons, I have 4 different coloured pairs to go with different socks, because I have too much time on my hands and like them to match.

Will give you a tip, when changing pooey nappy, takes socks and sock ons off as they put there feet in it, much easier to clean bare feet. And if you haven't already been told pretty much all baby clothes go down the way when taking them off so you don't need drag them over their heads.

Thanks for the tip about saving socks and sock ons from poo immersion! Bloody hell, we're in for a bit of a ride...!

Forgot to say... We've been researching cloth nappies since this thread began, even though I was a bit about them at the beginning when posters mentioned them. Anyway, we've just bought a stack of them this morning from the Nappy Lady website (brand chosen after pretty extensive email consults with her - she is fab). We'll be doing disposables at the beginning, just because of the endless newborn poo (so it has been suggested), but I'm so keen, having now read so much about them.

So thank you to whoever has mentioned them on this thread, as I don't think the idea would have crossed my mind. I don't actually know one single person in my family/ friendship circle who has ever used them. Am prepared for some interesting conversations...

muslims

Hey charlie how did you know which sort of reusable nappy to get? Or does the nappy lady do a taster pack sort of thing?