Please come and slap me and tell me im over reacting..

[vix1980]

I visited my friends house last night, shes due in the next 3 weeks whereas i am 5 1/2 months pregnant. Anyway she invited me up to look at the nursery and as soon as i walked in it completely freaked me out.

she has the cot up, wardrobe up with a whole rail of baby suits/clothes hanging up, tons of blankets, booties, cardigans, bathing products, nappies, bottles, sterilisers, the whole wardrobe was just completely full, then she says shes got 14 babygro's in her hospital bag to change the baby when needed.

I just got totally freaked out by seeing it all, we haven't even had the nursery plastered yet, let alone bought any furniture, we had the house renovated and just havent the money to do that room yet, it even has floorboards missing and all ive bought so far is a pack of 6 baby grows, and a sleep bag plus a box of nappies. Im just not prepared at all i was awake all last night just thinking about it literally got 3 hours sleep, both mine and dp's families are helping out with the cost of the cot and pram but everything else is down to us, we were in no rush to get the room done let alone then have to fork out for everything else. im just terrified i wont have everything i need .

i know im probably being stupid and hormonal plus tired today so thinks seem worse than they are, i wish id never seen her nursery now, id still be living in ignorant bliss, do i really need all that though??

vix, on the car seat it depends on a couple of things.

First, does your car have isofix? Isofix is this system where basically there are some metal hooks bonded to the body of the car for you to attach the baby seat to, if they're there you can feel them where the seat back joins the actual seat part of the seat is (where your bum goes - why is this so hard to describe??) Then you can have universal or semiuniversal isofix - universal means that there are more seats that will fit, semiuniversal is sort of specific to the car.

The alternative is to secure the baby seat with the seatbelt - this opens up the range of seats you can use - but isofix is thought to be safer.

You also need to think about what age/size of car seat you want. You can put a newborn in a group 0 or a group 1 - group 0 is for smaller babies only so it's more expensive as you don't get much use out of it but again, it's usually safer.

Finally, for any setup it may or may not have been tested by the company that makes the baby seat (which makes it safer again). Britax, maxi-cosi and Recaro all have "fit finders" on their websites where you can enter the make/model/year of your car and what size of baby seat you want and it'll tell you if it's been tested with isofix/seatbelt and in what positions in the car.

And then the last last thing is that if you want to buy a pushchair that the carseat can fit onto, you need to check that too!

If you need to buy new I'd recommend Kiddicare - they've usually got a bit of a discount over Mothercare, Halfords etc, their range is very wide and they do free delivery (or Saturday delivery for £13). But as ever google is your friend :)

(We had the devil's own job finding car seats. We had an Alfa Brera - lovely thing, but little leg room in the back. We tried every seat Kiddicare had in their showroom, couldn't find a thing to fit, and then spent 4 days to do all the research, part-ex the Brera for a Volvo estate, and buy 2 maxi-cosi Pebbles, 2 isofix bases and a Mountain Buggy to put them on. I think we spent less time researching where to do IVF than we did on that little lot...)

Vix!! Thank god you started the post, im 31 weeks today. we have a cot, but no cot fixings!!
We went to kiddicare and saw the furniture floor!! Do people honestly think upwards of £2500 for a crappy flimsy wardrobe cot and wobbly chest of drawers is the thing to buy!!! My husband took one look and said he was building his own!! So we now have a built in wardrobe, less than £100 for all the wood delivered to the house and the paint and it looks amazing!!
The cot was dh's!!!

We do have some babygros and a blanket, and ive bought all the things i think ill need in tesco, pads, nappies that kind of thing. We live near tesco, I figure none of us will die if the wardrobe isnt bursting full of gear and the baby doesnt have every latest gadget going.

We havent got a car seat yet or a buggy becasue i cant decde what to buy.
Whatever happens the baby wont care as long as he is fed and dry and snuggled.

Be chilled and happy that you havent gaffed all your money away and will have loads of fun shopping IF you want to when your baby comes and YOU will get all the right colours!! Good Luck xxx

I think your reaction was normal, your friend is way over prepared and it gave you a shock.

My friend had a baby a month before me. I went to see her when her baby was a week old I had a week to go. I walked into the nursery, and turned white, and backed out of the room going "It's a BABY"!!!!!!!

The reality doesn't hit until quite late, I think maybe seeing your friends nursery made it hit for you a bit.

When I went in to hospital to have DS (at 37 weeks), we had:
one pack of sleepsuits; one pack of vests; a car seat; nappies and a moses basket. That was all. DH had to buy a coat and some other stuff on the way to coming to pick us up to take him home.
We got the pram a couple of days later and the cot a few weeks later.
Most supermarkets are open 24 hours nowadays, so you should always be able to get enough stuff to tide you over.
At 5 and a half months we had nothing. I'd not even cleared the spare room to make it into a nursery. DS didn't sleep in there until he was about 7 or 8 months old.
You'll be ok. This is not something to lose sleep over.

at 5 and a half months pregnant, I should say! Had got our act together by the time DS was that old!

Thanks again (so glad i come on here now cos otherwise id be a nervous wreck rocking away muttering to myself), Ive calmed down a lot reading all these messages, TSG I did the same last night, shes letting me have her moses basket when shes finished with it and i sat there staring at it saying over and over, that will be in my house soon, oh my god!! i left not long after!

I realise now how silly she has been, she had all the cot bedding out already which i just kept thinking shes going to have to wash that again cos the baby wont be in here for months! Im glad ive calmed down and will be doing it MY way.

Thanks for the info about the car seats too, Does anyone know where the kiddicare shops are, Ive only seen the website but people have mentioned a shop, is there only 1 or a few?

Kiddicare is in peterborough, but i think theyve just been bought by Morrisons and there may be more stores coming soon!!

Wow, kiddicare franchise! How I would have loved that, we drove from south London to Peterborough just to sample their wide variety of car seats.

The nursery floor is insane though isn't it? An entire floor. Mind you I'm still reeling from the price of changing bags. I had to take my OH to John Lewis to show him the £130 changing bag because he didn't believe it really existed :)

I admit to having spent a silly amount of money on nursery furniture for my pfb, although in my defence we didn't have any other furniture to put in her room and I didn't go for the miniature stuff, it's varnished pine, so she is still using it and she's 8 (not the cot naturally).

I'd have really kicked myself if we'd only got a couple of years out of it.

The first time I heard the word "nursery" used for a baby's bedroom was when I moved to England. It led to a few stupid misunderstandings between me and English friends because to me "nursery" means childcare. The idea of a baby having its own, decorated, bedroom full of stuff is rather weird to me. My DS is 13 months and his room consists of a cot and a bookshelf where we keep his clothes. He's too small to be bothered by what the room looks like.

I have to say, the bookshelves have been great for his clothes. They were dead cheap and we put different type of clothes/bedding on different shelves - it means you can grab clothes quickly (which is important with little ones!). Wardrobes are a bit pointless IMO - you wash and put away so many baby clothes that the thought of putting stuff on hangers makes me feel ill.

One thing that was worthwhile getting was a fold-out changing table from Ikea. I know MN generally isn't in favour of changing tables, but we've used ours at least three times a day for over a year. It's in the sitting room, not the bedroom. Having it in the bedroom is pointless as you're not going schlep up the stairs every time your baby needs changing (which will be A LOT). The fact that it folds up means it doesn't take much room, and even at 13 months DS isn't able to move much on it (it's sort of cloth, hammock style so curved up at the edges) and so I don't have to worry too much about him escaping :)

With reagards to baby grows and vests - have about 5 of each in your hospital bag.

Then stick a carrier bag in the boot of the car with a few more, and another pack of nappies. That way DP/DH can pop down and grab the bag for you if you stay in longer than you thought.

I ended up with a EMCS with DS, so was in for a few more nights. A very lovely lady gave me spare baby grow as DS puked his way through all the ones I have. Thing is though, you end up ringing DH on their way in everyday with a list of things anyhow.

As for the furniture, we just got a couple of drawers and a cot bed from Ikea. If you want to make the room more 'nursery like', have a look at some of their decorations, they are very cheap and look lovely.

Good luck.

14 babygros in the hospital bag!! How long is she planning on staying? That's a good week and a half's worth at least.
I always laugh in shops when they ask me if I want the hangers for baby clothes. If I hadn't seen my own sister do it, I would never believe that people hang up baby clothes.

Another post of reassurance here (I'm 37+3), our spare room was already magnolia so I've not bothered painting, we've cleared out our junk so there's space in the room for baby things, bought some £3.50 curtains from ebay and that's it. There was already a wardrobe (which we got free from a neighbour when we moved in) and 2 chests of ikea drawers in there, so we're sticking with that furniture. I'm waiting for a handme down cotbed from a relative (not sure if it will be here in time or not but have moses basket for our room for the early days anyway).

I have been very lucky in that I've had a lot of handme downs in terms of baby grows/vests, but other than this, I've just bought some nappies, a car seat and a pram.

I too have friends who have done the 'nursery' thing and it makes me feel very uneasy - I don't want to get too excited/prepared until DC1 is here in my arms all safe and sound.

hi don't worry like another poster said some people are super organised some aren't it doesn't matter either way :) this is my third pg and i have my pram but only cause a friend was selling the one i wanted cheap! also have brought some other stuff sterililiser bottles and play gym but only cause they were on offer in baby events, the one thing i have been picking up is nappies buy only from a financial point of view as im on better money now so don't miss it but will on mla! you've got plenty of time don't worry! :)

Some of us like to go mad and spend everyday of pregnancy 'getting ready' hence the need to clean out Mammas and Pappas and MOthercare too if you've got time!! Some of us like to carry on in ignorant bliss - no right or wrong approach. My only bit of practice advice is that when I got to the last weeks I found it hard work to go out and do anything as basic as trolling round town buying baby things - did in fact have to abort a couple of trips out as I was just exhausted! You DO NOT want to be painting nurserys or putting together flat pack in those last weeks!!

I have 4 canvas boxes from Ikea, the kind that go in the fitted wardrobes.

I just wash the stuff and chuck it in the right box and even in the middle of the night I can grab the right thing!

1. Babygrows
2. Vests
3. Muslims on top/spare sheets on the bottom
4. To chuck outgrown stuff into when its too small, when this box gets full I bag it, label it and stick in the loft!

DD does have her own rail in my wardrobe for her dresses etc but I don't think it traumatises a 14 mo not to have a nursery wardrobe!

Now I did find having a changing table invaluable after a c-section, and for keeping all the crap in one place, I could just reach down and grab a nappy/wipe/cream etc without trying to remember where I left it last. Also it 's next to the shelves with the afore mentioned boxes, so if I need to change her vest etc I can grab and go.

The rest of the house is completely disorganised though!

I'm really early in my pregnancy, but I hate all the materialism surrounding babies, I'm planning on a sling, a car seat, some babygrows, some clothes, some reusable nappies, my old teddy from when I was 5, breastfeeding, and some cuddles.

/hippy

Be calm. I wouldn't buy anything until I was past 7 months or so anyway. DD has never had a wardrobe and she's now five. We decorated her 'nursery' when she turned four. She chose the theme. We didn't get round to buying a car seat until we were planning on taking her in a car, we never got round to buying a pram or pushchair, just used a sling. I think the day she was born we had some hand me down clothes and a moses basket. We used the drop-down leaf of one of those home office bureaus as a changing table. She spent most of her first year playing with hairbrushes and wooden spoons and ribbons and other household stuff, the first real toys to arrive came on her first birthday. She was fine, we were fine, she still is fine, everything is A-OK.

Don't panic I am 29 weeks pregnant and have sorted very little. I have this week bought some stuff for my hospital bag such as maternity pads. I have also recieved the pampers pack advertised from the telly perfect for hospital. But after that we have done nothing. We have been given some clothes and we have stuff from DS1 but I have told hubby not to bother until a month before. But we can top your 'our nursery isn't ready' we live in a 2 bedroomed house and need to build an extension for the baby's new room which will not be done until she is about 18 months old due to budget and time but she will stay with us and then share with big brother until that time. Just relax babies don't really need lots of stuff and you will get loads given to you anyway.

I hung up baby clothes. I was given so much stuff, that I couldn't fit it all in the two dressers in dd's room. She had a full double closet by the time she was about 4 weeks.
But, she was a first baby for all three sets of gps, friends, cousins....and everyone went a bit mad. It meant I only had to do laundry every couple weeks though!

heartmoonshadow Ok you top it all! having to build a nursery is something i do not envy you for after undergoing a years worth of renovations id be happy to never see a builder again!

Im feeling much more relaxed about it now though, think it was just that initial panic setting in, i came home and panicked to my oh who in turn i have now had to calm down as he took it literally and started putting up plasterboard the night after!