The WORST thing you bought for baby? (What can I cross off my list...?)

[PallasCat]

Really finding the 'best things' thread useful, but I'm equally keen to cross anything off the baby shopping list that I'm not actually going to use!

So what did you buy for your baby that you've since decided was not worth the cost/space/hassle?

I'm not so much looking for bashing of particular products, more guidance on which generic items you found unnecessary in the end.

Something about destroying nutrients? In any case, mine were all breastfed but two of them insisted on eating only orange food once weaned. They SEEM healthy enough.....

Fancy changing bags - just pointless. We had a £3 bag from Primark that did the job just fine.

Door bouncer - she just wasn't that impressed with it.

We couldn't have functioned without scratch mitts! No matter how short we kept her nails, she'd scratch herself. However she did have a big, protruding strawberry birth mark, and we'd been warned about the risk of excessive bleeding if she did scratch it, so we were extra cautious to avoid that.

Expensive unwieldy iCandy travel system. We live somewhere really hilly and a decent sling is far better/easier (we had a Connecta), you'll have both hands free and save yourself over £500. Alternatively, If you do lots of walking/trips on the bus, you can get nice lightweight pushchairs which are lie flat from birth at a fraction of the cost

Expensive cot, which was essentially put up to appease the Health Visitor as we co-slept (thankfully 2nd hand on EBay)

Baby bouncer, door bouncer & Bumbo(we were given). As MagickPants alludes to, worth reading about Natural Gross Motor Development before making a decision on whether to buy any of these.

One of those high chairs (such as Stokke) that's supposed to grow with the child. My DS wanted to sit on a proper chair + booster cushion before the age of 2. He started to refuse to even sit at the table if it was there

I did however love having a few proper outfits for DS to wear when we were out when he was tiny (nice, soft materials) babygros just feel a bit like leaving the house in PJs to me!

Feeding chair- so much easier and cosier to snuggle on the sofa where you can have everything to hand.
Baby changing bag - just use your normal handbag.
Bath thermometer - you can check yourself .
Breast pump - wait until you have established breast feeding / 100% know you are going to be able to breastfeed. I ended up selling mine as I didn't breastfeed in the end.

Changing units are pointless, the floor's fine
Huge travel systems are rubbish, get a McClaren
Slings work for some babies, not for others and different slings suit different wearers.
Snow suits were brilliant.
One of mine loved the door bouncer the others didn't.

Baby bath, baby hairbrush, swaddling stuff, baby oil/ powder, baby hooded towel things, buying baby bottles / steriliser / warmer brand new when bf goes well and they refuse all else (don't commit, maybe buy a ready pack if you go to bottles head out to a store / ideally borrow from a friend until you know what you're going with). Nursing pjs. You're in your pjs. Just hoick them up / use button through tops.

Nappy bin (sooooo smelly)
Top and tail bowl
Bouncy chair (both hated it!)
Baby gym

Things that were useful and used daily were-
Lots and lots of muslin squares
Many vests and onesies
Microwave steriliser
Electric breast pump (if you are bfing as manual pump made my hand ache!)
Pushchair you can push and fold with one hand

Nappy bin. The kind that you put the nappy in then twist, and you end up with the Devil's Draught Excluder, a horrible lumpy sausage that stinks half of poo, half of floral air-freshner (the scented sacks). It just looms in the corner of the room. No, no, no.

I have to disagree with the pp that have said that a bottle warmer is a useless purchase. I bought a Philips bottle warmer and find it very useful as it warms food up too.
I was a bit undecided about getting one as never had on for the other 3 DCs and managed using a Pyrex jug.
DC4 is 8 months old now and I still use it, it has a defrost setting that I used when defrosting breast milk. I use it now to defrost and warm DSs food (it has a food warming setting too) and also his morning milk, i think it cost around £35 and have definitely had my money's worth out of it.
My worst purchase was a tummy time mat as DS hated being on his tummy until he learned to roll over.

Another great purchase was a Summer baby bath seat (had 3 positions) which I used from about a month old until around 6 months old when DS was sitting well.
We never had a nappy bin as friends who'd had them said the were a waste of money.

Bumbo, total waste of time. Got used for about 3 minutes. Baby wasn't interested and it just got in the way so was quickly rehomed!

We used our baby bath a lot, but I bought a daft thing to kind of sit/lie the baby on in the bath so they can't fall underwater. Turns out there's no substitute for actually holding onto your small wriggly baby in the bath!

(On the contrary, I loved our nappy bin! It did keep the smell in, and worked brilliantly. Was used for many years.)

I was a sucker for anything that was supposed to make feeding more convenient when you were out and about - those sleeves you slip a bottle into and then shake so the magic crystals activate and warm it up - useless. The electric sleeve you plug into the car charger to achieve the same effect - useless. The pre-divided container for baby milk powder along with a thermos of warm water - fiddly. Just get your baby used to drinking it at room temperature and then buy the little cartons of ready prepared baby milk.

On the other hand both my kids loved the baby door bouncer but I did borrow one rather than buy it.

Any item of clothing that was supposedly 'designer'. I had a few 'designer' hand-me-downs and they were almost invariably less sturdy and durable than stuff from Mothercare or Boots. A pair of Timberland dungarees had poppers that NEVER fastened.

All my babies wore snowsuits, throughout the winter until they came out of nappies. They were in their buggies most of the time, not cars so that might have made a difference.
I didn't have much equipent, so used pretty much everything.

DS1 & DS2 were in snowsuits every time we left the house on a cold day. We found them really useful - they are 18 & 14 now so maybe it's more a case of fashions changing? I don't remember being able to buy a decent warm coat that wasn't a snowsuit when they were babies. That said, DD is 4 & although she had a snowsuit she mostly wore a normal coat - because we were able to find a really good, warm, easy to wash one for her.

Things I wouldn't buy again are a baby swing - 3 minutes max usage before the screaming started.

A bottle warmer - Pyrex jug & hot water work just as well if not better.

Bumbo - £35 worth of moulded plastic & DD's chubby little legs wouldn't even fit comfortably in the holes. Couldn't sell it on either, ended up giving it away.

The baby bath we used for the first few weeks - but if you're going to get one, look for one with a plug (or other way of releasing the water) in the bottom.

Scratch mitts we used & wouldn't have been without.

We never had, or even thought about getting, a nappy bin so you can clearly manage without.

I think the main thing is buy nothing other than a pack of nappies, a cot and a couple of baby gros until baby is born, you'll have a much better idea when they are there what your baby likes and what you might use.

Oh, just remembered ,I had a sling for my 3rd baby, but never used it.

Hmm. These threads show how different our needs and our babies' are. Apart from the obvious (stupidly expensive 'nursery' furniture and stinking nappy bins) the rest is so subjective. I had twins and the best buy ever was the special changing mat/baby bath unit. It saved my back. I spent all day at it, and its height was perfect. Trying to bend over a bath to bathe prem babies, or - shudder - having to keep the kitchen sink perfectly clean so they could be bathed in there instead would have been extra stress.

Those door bouncers were a life saver too. They went in them every day while I prepared dinner.

Also, dummies! I've nothing against them & tried all 3 of mine with one fairly early on but none of them were interested. If you plan to use dummies, I'd recommend just buying one or two to start with until you know your baby actually wants them.

Breast pump. Cost loads (about £90 I seem to remember) and we only used it a couple of times.

Baby barh, complete waste of time...

So shocked to see the nursing chair on here. I would have been so lost without mine. My absolute most precious moments with ds were the hours we spent in the nursing chair and I'd give anything to go back. We got rid of it before we had dd and I was gutted.