How much did you spend in your baby's first year?

[Pinetreeland]

The quotes for how much it costs to have a baby (for the first year) seems to vary from website to website and I just wonder how much did you spend in the first year of your child's life? Please ignore expenditure such as childcare and lost of earings, just the cost of kit and baby classes etc?

Many thanks!

I spent absolutely nothing on 'baby clasess' - they aren't obligatory! Kit is a moveable feast tbh - you spend what you have.

hahah, I'm glad I didnt count, otherwise I'd never be doing it again!!

• Nappies - £20 a month, I think.
• Formula - £25 a month, if I remember correctly. I always bought the formula milk for a month on payday, so I didnt need to worry about running out of cash when I needed to buy more!
• pram - £250 (but this was 5.5 years ago). The one I am getting this time is £450ish inc car seat.
• Cot - £250 inc mattress
• extra car seat was £80
• Mothercare buggy - £40
• Booster seat instead of high chair - £35
• dummies/bottles/steriliser etc etc - prob somewhere around £100 total
• Snacks/jars of food - £300-400 at a guess
• clothes/muslin cloths - we got LOADS as gifts, so prob only spent around £50 on all this.

ah yes, I forgot, NOTHING on classes. I feared the thought of them :)

I haven't got there yet (26 weeks pg) but we'll be spending about £1800 on "stuff" before the birth including a birthing pool...and then the costs of decorating the nursery (paint, carpet, etc).

And then more nappies, clothes, etc!

Am I being naive to think I don't need much beyond

• nappies (planning on reusable, can get whole lot for c.£60)
• 10 white babygrows/10 white vests - what, £20? Assume we'll get bought pretty outfits and no point spending money since they grow like the clappers
• cot - seem to be £20-50 second hand off eBay
• mattress from new seem to be c.£30
• car seat - £80ish
• chest of drawers to double as changing table another £20-30 off eBay
• pushchair I'm getting donated by a friend

I make that no more than £300. Or am I being over-optimistic and missing loads of stuff?

There seems to be loads of good second hand furniture etc off eBay.

Spent £100 on reusable nappy kit which took us from baby to toddler.
£5 on a nappy pail.

Cot was a gift. As was mattress.
Car seat from a good friend.
£90 on breastpump (but this was with money given to us from relatives to buy something for baby)
Moses basket, £35
Bottles and steriliser £25

Clothes etc we got either as gifts or from FIL who is mad on car boot shopping and provides random huge bags of clothes at regular intervals.

Formula - about £8 every 2 weeks at 5-8 months old.

Ummm......probably frittered more away on bits and pieces (teething rings, new bottle teats, replacement scratch mitts, hats for winter, Infacol, rattle toys, books, footmuff, etc) Loads of stuff you never think you need or want, but really really need or want in the end.

We have spent at least £3k on baby stuff if you include all of the furniture for the nursery, pram, car seat and all the other equipment like breast pump, steriliser, baby monitor, clothes, baby bjorn sling, baby gym, plus my maternity clothes, NCT classes, and hypnobirthing classes, plus books about pregnancy and childbirth. I bought expensive stuff though - John Lewis furniture, bugaboo pram etc etc. You could definitely do it cheaper than that. I would be wary of a £30 mattress - you need a good one for cot death safety issues. That's probably one of the things its worth spending as much as you can possibly afford on. Also you need a proper lie-flat pram - not just a pushchair for the first 6 months.
Once the baby is born there is the massive drop in income whilst I am on maternity leave followed by £900 a month for nursery once I go back to work!!! Not to mention nappies etc. Its a pretty expensive business if you ask me.

it's worth bearing in mind that (depressingly) you don't notice the outgoings as much as you naturally cut back in spending in other areas (mainly nights out, booze, socialising etc) or the socialising you do do is likely to be over coffee with other mums (hope this doesn't depress you too much!)
Classes can be great, but I found the best ways of getting to know people were via my NCT or pre-natal NHS groups, and through the local community mums and babies groups. NHS group is free, mums and babies costs about £2 a week.

You don't need an expensive mattress because of cot desk risk. You need a new mattress because that is recommended to reduce the risk but how much you spend on it is up to you. The costlier the mattress the better (in theory) support your baby will get but children sleep fine on all sorts of things Dd2 had a very basic mattress from Ikea - it was fine, dd3 had a mid-range mattress - also fine and dd1 had a second-hand mattress as that was before the advice on new was issued.

I had a surprise pregnancy (not discovered til over half way through), was back single at the time, working in a pub, living back home with my dad, and bloody shocked. Lots of relatives, friends and friends of friends donated clothes, equipment, bedding, useful things of every kind, without my asking for a thing. I was immensely grateful! I can honestly say that in my DD1's first year I didn't have to buy her a single toy or item of clothing. I know I was damn lucky.

I mean they all had children and donated their castoffs and used equipment, not that they went and bought me lots of stuff btw :)

Too much on our first child!

£500 on a 'travel system'. Could have got a perfectly decent buggy and separate car seat for under £200.

Vast amounts of things I never used or abandoned quickly:

Baby bath (just use a normal bath or the sink)

Nappy wrapper (they end up stinking)

Expensive cot and moses basket (babies don't care where they sleep - I needn't have spent £295!)

Expensive bouncer chair (same principle as above)

Vests and babygrows from poncy shops (why? tesco and Asda do them for under a tenner for five and they end up covered in baby sick and are grown out of in weeks)

I could go on and on...

Second baby - totally different story. You live and learn!

I spent a fortune. But I am a marketing (wo)man's dream. I wouldn't do it again. Actually, I probably would

You don't need to though - I've been helping out a friend who's on a very strict budget and I really encouraged her to look at places like Ikea (who do loads of things much cheaper than traditional 'baby' shops), NCT sales, ebay, gumtree, borrow stuff.

First baby due in Jan and we do not have alot to spend as I want to save the money so I can stay off work for as long as possible and hopefully go back part time. IMO getting extra time with my little one is the most important thing.

We buy an expensive item every month at the moment after we get paid to spread the cost. If you look around you can get things for whatever price range you need. We chose to go to Ikea for cot, matress and changing table as very good value for money (162 pounds in total) WE chose a Chico pushchair for 50 pounds it is suitable from birth but not planning to use it till 3 months as plan to use a sling.

Asda do a baby week every few months and is worth getting napies then to save a bit of money.

Who knows how much the rest will all cost, only time will tell...

Hmmm.

£50 on graco travel system - brand new bargain from DS's friend who was pram tester.

£200 on cot/changing table

Borrowed moses basket and baby bath (latter was never used)

£20 on microwave steriliser and bottles as never succeeded in BF.

£4 on bouncy chair at NCT sale.

£100 odd on flash highchair.

Never counted how much on nappies/Formula.

Babygros and vested in white all donated by ds.

Bought loads of pretty Next things for bedroom though.

And went crazy on clothes - a lot from Matalan though.

DS = Dsis

I think about £2500 on stuff before DS was born, but we were both earning good money and that includes £700 of Bugaboo and accessories that my parents bought for us. That included a full set of resuseables that are still going strong.

In the months following, I've no idea. Maybe £100 a month for the first few months, we are suckers for a gadget! We had no outlay on nappies or milk though because we used reuseables and I BF'd.

Nearly everything we bought will be used again for DC2 though. We purposely bought mainly neutral clothes until he was 6-9 months, and everything was good quality. The only things we will buy new is a new set of reuseable nappies (£250ish for the ones I like), a new cot mattress and a playpen to keep the baby safe from DS rampaging around the place while I have a wee! So about £4-500 in total.

We spent quite a lot in his first year, off the top of my head:

• approx £100 on reusable nappies
• In the region of £80-100 on clothes (we were given lots too, would probably have bought more otherwise)
• £175 on high chair (stokke, love it, worth every penny)
• £400 on stokke cot (again, love it, worth every penny)
• We were given a bugaboo pram & car seat, which would have been an enormous (£600+) expense if we'd bought it
• Probably a few hundred quid on other bits and bobs.

On the other hand, we've spent virtually nothing (apart from food and milk, obviously) in his second year. We got given clothes for his first birthday which he's only just growing out of (he's 2 in 2 weeks) as well as toys, and his bigger car seat ended up being free after a delivery cock up by the company. I really can't think of anything we've bought him apart from a few books [bad mother emoticon]

I think you can spend whatever you want.

I kept all DD's and DS1's stuff and have been given/borrowed stuff and as a result have spent hardly anything on DS2 so far other than nappies, wipes & breastpads. I BF him, and am using same nursing bras as last time.

I never bought jars etc when my older 2 were weaned - made my own baby food - which is much cheaper as well, although I will switch to formula when I go back to work.

If you can on a tight budget you can borrow stuff or get second hand, if money is no object then there is no limit how much you can spend. Classes are not essential, can get it from books etc.

I have spent:

Loads on cakes and coffee when out breastfeeding, I needed the energy kicks. £20 per week?

10 per week on classes is an estimate. (yoga / baby type classes - never birth classes, for social reasons I found classes to be essential).

10 per week bus fares. I hardly ever catch cabs, and do not run a car.

20 per week on nappies, teething gels, wipes, additional baby food (rice cakes and so on).

180 on cot + mattress.

80 on 2 x travel cots.

20 on 2/ changing mats.

20 on changing bags.

10 on buggy clips.

350 on buggy, car seat and push chair.

200 on re-usuable nappy kit with bells and whistles on, which I was too tired to use so I gave it away.

400 getting room painted

200 on carpet cleaning.

700 on new carpet.

40 on paint.

80 on cot bedding / curtains.

100 on sheepskin and play rugs.

120 on stair gates.

50 on clothes rack.

60 on high chair/s.

80 on Breast pump (never used).

estimated 300 on clothes / shoes / socks / muslin squares / baby towels / snow suits / hats / swim suits, but I used e-bay as well.

20 on baby cutlery.

loads on special creams due to skin.

loads more on food - my baby eats loads.

loads more on take aways.

300 on toys.

150 on baby books, books for me, magazines.

50 on dvds, films rental.

50 on late fines!

50 on musical mobiles ( 2 of them).

I picked up moses baskets for free and some toys for free.

200 on going to a circus and other kiddies entertainment (more for me than the baby).

And I am about to spend more money for rehabilitation for me

I am going to add all this up and probably go mad!

£50 on slings!

and I do not own a microwave.

ecuse, no you're not being naive. That's about what we spent. (outside of swimming lessons/toys) You will use more clothes/toiletries though. But that first year can be pretty cheap.
New parents are such a marketing target - you get bombarded with catalogues, I think I just decided I wanted to kick against that.

We spent 26 on a second hand crib.
13 on a new mattress for it.
50 on a bottle/steriliser etc set
60 on mothercare order for things for labour bag/baby blankets
Aprox 50 on clothes - have had masses donated.
Around 50 on books and toys- parenting books/baby books.
20 on nappies and wipes.
Donated a load of toys.
Bugaboo was free thanks to retailers error :o
Around 100 on misc other items (changing mat, fitted sheets, soft toys etc)

Total: 369, all set for baby now :)

I forgot to add in what I spent on classes - I would think probably about £400 in the first year. We did swimming, music, baby yoga and a few other bits.

And yes, for the first couple of months certainly give yourself a bit of extra budget for food - we had more takeaway and convenience food than normal, although I did do a lot of cooking and froze it before DS was born so we had 3/4 meals a week out of the freezer which only needed heating and some rice/pasta/potatoes and veg adding. If you have the freezer space then I really recommend doing it, it will save you a fortune in convenience food and mean that you can actually eat some good food even on the bad days!