Quick Survey.......things you couldn't have survived without

[goldendelicious]

Quick Survey......

What are five baby buys you couldn't have survived without, were really useful and gave you good value for money?

Also list 5 things you wish you hadn't wasted your money on, and wouldn't recommend to a friend/relative.

(Sis having 1st baby and seems to want to buy the WHOLE of Mothercare - help me try and talk her round!!)

Mine are: -

Best buys
1 - Muslin Squares soooo handy for all manner of things - sick, spills, protecting sofa etc etc
2 - Graco autobaby car seat & autobase, can't tell you how valuable this was for ease of getting ds in and out of the car - godsend.
3 - Baby sleeping bag/grobag, kept ds warm and cosy and couldn't kick it off
4 - Travel changing mat, brill when out and about and you know its clean
5 - V Tech baby play gym. Kept ds amused for hours on end, we were forever changing the batteries he used it so much! Worth every penny.

Worst buys
1 - Nappy wrapper. Smells even though it claims to lock smells in and a pain to empty and change cassette. Expensive too.
2 - Snow suit. DS was boiling even in mid winter. Found lots of blankets better.
3 - Expensive moses basket. Not suggesting i didn't find it useful, just no point buying a brand new expensive one cos ds was only in it for six weeks.
4 - Baby bath. We used this twice for ds then used a bath support in the big bath. Ten times easier!
5 - Baby play nest/doughnut, ds didn't get any stimulation out of it at all, just kept toppling over and screamed to get out!

Top 5
1 Mumsnet
2 Mumsnet
3 Mumsnet
4 Mumsnet
5 Mumsnet

i ditto st george!

Best buy - Buggy (Travel system with detachable carseat)
Baby Bjorn/sling
Bouncy chair
Calpol

Anything else I could probably live without.

Best 5:

1. Muslins (dd2 will not go to bed without one. At 4 weeks she cried and cried at a friends house and would not settle, my friend said piut a muslin by her mouth, within seconds she was asleep and I haven't looked back since - 2 yrs ago)

2. Sleepsuits and body suits (forget those mini outfits - far too fiddley and look awful)

3. Grobag, newborn and next size

4. Sling - fabric wraparound not baby bjorn type.

5. proper pram (M&P carrycot/ pushchair/carseat.
   All 3 of mine have slept in the carrycot bit at night and spent daytimes in it as a pram. Babies should lie flat to support their backs. So cool in hot weather and room for blankets and cosey toes in the colder weather.

Worst:

1. Baby bath
2. silly outfits
3. dummy - if you don't buy it you can't use it!
4. too many soft toys (clutter the loft)
5. baby toiletries that never get used

oh dear, gg. I can vouch your post was perfectly harmless, save for that last reference to SWMNBN's book - heehee

In addition to those already mentioned:

Best:
Rear view mirror jobby so you can see if dd's been sick in the rear-facing car seat without causing a multiple pile-up on the M4
Changing mat that fits on top of cot; saves space and saves your back
Nappy wrapper; I love it, saves trips out to the bin 8 times a day (less useful when start solids & grown-up poos arrive)
Vests; summer born baby wore nothing else for first 5 months
Microwave steriliser
Sling thing that ties baby into any chair, once they can sit. Great for travelling.
Travel cot
Toilet seat with handles

Worst
M&P pram; too big & heavy, if I was having another (!) I'd stick to Baby Bjorn for first 3 months then get a stroller
T-shirts, dungarees, hats, socks,
Supermarket own brand nappies

Main advice: don't get everything beforehand, wait until after baby arrives & choose stuff when you know you need it! Also gives chance to try stuff out & get tips from other mums

oh dear, I'm sorry.

took so bloomin' long to type up, too!

the best buys i found when my ds (now 18 months was born were:

sling
bumbo
classical music cds (helped him sleep)
muslins
dummy (although he weaned himself off it when he was 6 months old thankfully!)

the worst buys were:

swinging crib - he kept sliding to the edge and his arms would dangle outside of it
nappy bin - smelled rank
SWMNBN's book - nuff said
my three wheeler huge monster of a travel system
bottles - never used once

best
infacol!
muslins
grobags
cot bed rather than cot - lasted much longer
baby nest - maybe your sis should try yours and see if her baby likes it - ours loved it!

worst
Moses basket
baby door bouncer - he hated it with a vengeance
dungarees for tiny baby = total waste of time, they never fit
cheap back pack - if you're going to get one, get a Littlelife or something similar with padding otherwise they are so bloody uncomfortable you won't use one.
bath

oh, Baby Mozart dvd was a godsend!!! It must have been watched about a million times, every single day for about 18 months... Now he's into neighbourhood/farmyard animals. And they aren't too annoying like some of the cbeebies progs...

Best Buys (oh so many!)

1. Baby Bjorn bouncy chair. Now 8 months and still loves it as can bounce himself. His 2 year old friends also love it.

2. Tripp Trapp Highchair. He loves sitting up at the table eating with us.

3. Skip Hop Nappy Bag. Fits over the handles of stroller brilliantly and DH loves carrying it as doesn't look like a nappy bag.

4. Sheepskin. Present from friends. Used it constantly when DS was born and still do. He loves lying and sitting on it now.

5. Organic Terry Nappies. Much more absorbant than muslins and useful for so many many things.

6. Session (for mother and baby) with a good Cranial Osteopath.

7. Good stroller with ability to have baby face you, includes a good bassinet, and is light and small enough to get on the bus.

8. Neals Yard Baby Balm. Any dry, chapped skin, nappy rash - anything disappears in a flash and it is not full of nasty petroleum products. In fact all the Neals Yard Baby products are excellent.

Worst Buys:

1. Too many parenting books which offer conflicting and different advice and often make you feel inadequate. Go with your intuition. You know your baby.

2. Too many muslins.

Can't think of anything else. I got only the essentials waiting till after DS was born to buy anything else.

Best buys
1: cordless phone!
2: Broadband for Mumsnet!
3: Travel cot
4: muslins
5: The Great Ormond Street baby book birth and beyond (or something similar)
6: fold-up booster seat/high chair thingy
7: baby gym
8: Sleepsuits
9: Complicated but VERY comfy baby sling

Worst buys:
1: Terry towelling nappies (Though these days I would use the shaped, reuseable nappies, no problem)
2: Too many 'expert' baby books - confusing, confidence sapping
3: A pram which could not be folded to fit in boot of car and had to remain standing in front room (No hallway) for the first 6 months!
4: A basic baby sling which was so unsupportive, you still had to use one arm to hold baby in it and killed my back by the time baby was 10lbs
5: Any babygrow/sleepsuit which didn't have poppers down legs!

digital thermometer... worth the money and infacol aswell!

another worst buy - 3 HUGE boxes of johnstons baby wipes...must have about 60 packets and no idea what they are used for!

Window sox, fantastic invention. They take milliseconds to put on and shade the whole back seat of the car.

Agree with moses basket, minimal use.

1. Travel cot - it's truly travelled the UK and the world. Best £90 spent. Felt like a lot at the time.

2. Rosemary Leach Baby book. Saved me when I was desperate. 3. Bjorn sling - my husband's favourite 4. Grobag - wish I'd used it with my first 5. Portable high chair 6. Johnson and Johnson breast pads. I had milk to spare, and more. Didn't need 1. Sanigenic Nappy bin - useless, smelly, broken Can't think of anything else!!

We have a small flat, so we thought a lot about space saving stuff. My top buys/gifts so far (DD 5 months) have been:

1. cot-top changing mat
2. Ariel travel system with click in car seat, and carry cot (from John Lewis) - we use carry cot with breathable matttress for DD to sleep in, so no need for separate moses basket/crib
3. lambskin fleece - very portable, and DD will settle anywhere as long as she is on her fleece
4. bath seat - no need for separate baby bath, when not in use sits on top of the toilet cistern so takes up very little room (in comparison to a bath)
5. Tommee Tippee nappy wrapper - we have found it very useful, and bar the few occasions we have forgotten to close the lid we find it keeps the odours in
6. muslins - endlessly useful - we used one to mop up spilt red wine on the sofa last night, and it worked perfectly!
7. baby sleeping bags - so easy!

As for worst buys/gifts:

1. baby toiletries - haven't opened any of the stuff we've been given - only thing we use is baby shampoo, and a bit of baby soap occasionally.
2. fancy baby outfits - we have so many, and our DD generally lives in vest and babygros at the moment.

Incidentally it was really obvious when we got gifts who already had children - they gave us the useful stuff like muslins, teething rattles and a big basket of muffins (yum!). the non-parents gave us all the cute but impractical outfits and teddies!

Best:

1. Graco Quattro travel system - great click-in car seat, ideal for moving sleeping tots around
2. Cotbed - got this instead of a cot, and am really glad! They grow so quickly...
3. Avent microwave steam steriliser - quick and easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy
4. Gro-bags - why did I buy all those sheets and blankets?
5. Lightweight Maclaren buggy - great for when they're a bit older and are happy sitting up
6. Lots of vests and sleepsuits - easier than 'proper' clothes, and no need to get them 'dressed' or 'undressed' each day!
7. Towelling bath support - makes bathing newborns much easier
8. The Tiny Love cot mobile that plays classical music. A real hit!
9. Changing areas upstairs and downstairs. Save your legs!

Worst:

1. Borrowed a Moses basket for both ours - glad we didn't buy one. They're only in them for about 30 minutes!
2. Door bouncer - it was a real struggle to get them in and out, so it didn't get much use
3. Endless sheets and blankets as advised by various magazines. Gro-bags much better once they're old enough
4. Washable nappies - complete nightmare and expensive to boot
5. Toiletries - the only thing we use is baby shampoo. Everything else is sitting around getting dusty in a top and tail bowl. The T&T bowl itself was a waste of money, as was the matching plastic storage box. Bought them in a pregnancy haze!

Sorry, have written too much as usual!

best

1. Tiny musical mobile
2. Britax isofix car seat
3. Babybjorn
4. Fisherprice kick and play bouncy chair
5. fish tank - dd loves watching the fish from her playpen

worse

1. tricotti sling - dd was too long, no space for her legs
2. mamas and papas pramette - too small and too bumpy
3. bumbo - she almost toppled over, unsafe
4. medela breast pump - much better to rent a proper pump
5. far too many bottles - she doesn't like any of them

best

1. muslins
2. sling
3. baby gym
4. motherease one size nappies
5. For later on: first years high chair thingy that straps on to a chair. The only way to go for a small house. Now on its second baby. Hardly any bits to clean. Cheap. Only problem is it doesn't fold for travelling but look for cloth/inflatable travel seats.

worst

1. Britax Verso travel system at £250 for 3 months use! - only used sling for first month, then Maclaren Quest from 5 months (slightly too early but we were desperate, the system was so heavy.) proper pram or from birth pushchair wd be better (the travelseat was OK)

2. Travelseat that only has one position. Bought this years ago before i even had children, for visitors - it's ok but the ones that allow you to put the children in a reclining position are MUCH better. (poss this refers only to second stage carseats, not sure).

3. weird heavy cubic rattle from Boots. Worst toy ever. Much too heavy for little babies - if they do attempt to pick it up they either can't or it hits them on the head. Dull dusty blue colour. Tiny mirror too small to look into. Uninteresting pastel beads that don't do much. Designed by who???

4. Awful bouncy chair which didn't really bounce but had a vile vibrating setting we never even got to work, from Toys R Us. To be fair, ds lay in it cheerfully watching me in the kitchen for large chunks of months 1 - 5, but what I really needed was an actual plain but really bouncy chair, without all the stupid plastic bells and whistles they now stick on baby stuff in order to attract hopeless shoppers like me.

5. stuffed toys. Well, not that we bought any. DON'T DO IT. DS at 2.5 occasionally shows interest in 1 teddy he chose himself a year ago. Otherwise we have lived what feels like decades with a house full of soft toys we feel unable to get rid of and which he has never even glanced at.

Best buys:

1.Urban detour 3 wheel travel system.
2. Hauck bouncy chair
3. 'lots of rings' toy from ELC, easy for them to hold and look at... DS' only toy other than his play mat til he was about 6 mnths!still loves it now at 19months.
4.Dummies.
5. Grobags.

Worst.

1.Lindam night and day bottle warmer.
2.Any really noisey toys (would much rather have a wooden spoon and a saucepan!)
3.Kidz Kargo discovera tandem.(want a Jane powertwin if anyone is selling! lol)
4.Any baby advice books.
5.Baby bath.

Best things

1. Tiny love mobile (the classical music one)
2. What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen
3. Dummies
4. Footed velour trousers (paired with long sleeve vests coz I got v.quickly bored with babygrows & they dried quickly)
5. Knitted buttoned up cardie with hood, so much easier than getting hat on/off newborn who doesn't like hats..

Worst things

1. Jane Powertrack 360, PITA
2. Jane Matrix car seat, double PITA, could never actually get it in or out of the car!
3. Soft toys given as gifts
4. Mamas and Papas mobile that lasted for 3 and a half seconds before needing to be wound up again, thus purchase of #1 above

Best

A Hauck Bungee Rocker Chair.
Graco carseat with an autobase
Tiny Love Play Gym
Avent Steam Steriliser
Bodysuit vests. The ones without poppers are a pain.
Sudocrem
Pampers Sensitive Baby Wipes
Avent Changing Bag rucksack. Doesn't look like a baby related bag at all but gives you heaps of storage, a special insulated pouch and a changing mat. Expensive but worth it.

Worst
Graco pram that was part of the above travel system. Huge and heavy.
Doughnut -DD hated it as a baby, but now at 18 months, loves to put all her soft toys in it and lay in there with them.
Avent Magic Cups. If you drop the cup on a hard surface, the liquid pours out without fail.
Baby lotions and potions. Still have a cupboard full.

Hi Everyone,

My worst buys are;
Baby Carrier used only twice cost £30.

Infant Prenatal Listening Monitor didn't work, not even the midwife could get it to work.

Baby Bath used until we found a bath tub support.

Best buys are;

Bath Tub SupportElectronic ThermometerBottle WarmerBouncey ChairCar Seat from birth to 4 years