Budgeting for first baby

[Lemondrop09]

I worry about money. A lot. I'm not sure if I'm over worrying or being sensible. I was just wondering how other people are approaching budgeting for their first baby.

I knew we would be planning for a baby for a while before we actually started TTC, so we've been squirrelling away as much as I can to cover bills while I'm on Mat leave. Assuming I get maternity pay (depending on whether I get made redundant in the next 6 months, but that's a whole other thread ), we've saved a good amount for bills. I now want to put aside enough for buy everything for the baby and then, if possible, a slush fund for some disposable income for the unpaid part of Mat leave.

Anyway, regarding purchasing baby goods, we are aiming to save £2000. It seems like a lot, but we're budgeting for a £600 Bugaboo Bee in there (as most other pushchairs are too big for our car ). We're not necessarily aiming to spend that much, but thought it was a good amount to have put aside. We're hoping to buy new (although not crazy expensive designer) items, although I realise you can save buying second hand.

Roughly what did you spend, setting up for new baby? What's a sensible amount to try and save?

I don't think £2k is ridiculous. Ds is 9 months. We got a maxi cosi pebble plus with base which was about £400 and a iCandy Peach (it converts to a tandem and we plan on a second child so made sense to me) which was about £750. Cotbed was a hand me down but we bought a new mattress for about £80 (half price in mothercare sale). We didn't really buy much nursery furniture (just used chest of drawers etc that we already had) but we did buy a nursing chair which has had plenty of use. Was about £150. Snuzpod was £200 and sleepyhead another £100 or so but worth their weight in gold! Clothes, blankets etc were mainly gifts or bought cheaply from supermarkets etc. I'd second the sleeping bags though, grobag do a newborn version.

It's not just the initial bits either, it's nice to have a bit of money around for the stuff they need later. We've just bought two extended rear facing car seats now ds is out of the baby carrier seat. Cybex sirona was £375, maxi-cosi two way pearl £250. Plus bits like a jumparoo, bouncy chair, paying for things like baby sensory and baby massage. Most of this stuff isn't essential and you could get cheaper versions but I liked choosing what I wanted and we budgeted for it. Plus I do think with things like car seats it's worth buying the best you can afford.

I wouldn't bother with a breast pump until you know where you are with feeding. I have a medela swing and do use it and it's great but I didn't need it for a good few weeks. If you need one in the early days the hospital will probably provide one.

You can get a lot cheaper second hand and it's worth keeping an eye out for things like the Aldi baby and toddler events. Enjoy the shopping!

P.s I love our video monitor! I think they're definitely worth the extra!

On the bugaboo tip, we went to John Lewis to figure out what we liked, then found an entire chameleon 3 set on eBay for £150 last week. Just need to buy the replacement mattress- saving of about £700!

For things like play gyms, jumperoo and mama and papas snug seats get second hand as they use them for only a few months so second hands ones are in good condition. Join a local Facebook selling site.

Sainsbury tu will be having a 25% off clothes event soon.

How much you need to spend depends a lot on your baby. My DD struggled to bf and ff with a specialist milk, bottles, sterilisers etc is expensive. She is currently buggy refusing so we are using slings but only want to sleep in the buggy not the sling. We don't use the cot so I am glad we were given it. She was a long baby so was not in the baby bath for long but she was late to sit and struggled to sit in the bath so the angel care baby seat was fantastic. Everything about parenting depends on the wants and wishes of your child.

Definitely invest in a pushchair you love, you don't want to be buying another in 12 months time!

We got a all singing, all dancing monitor with a night show and 2 way speaking things. We have never used those functions! A bog standard one would have done!

Also spent £100 on a fancy swing and a further £100 on a baby play mat. Neither got much use! Total waste of money!

Aldi nappies and wipes are great! Go to events run by Mothercare and Mamas and Papas if you haven't already. You often get discount vouchers.

Grobags are great and most seem to be unisex. Ive had the best prices from Babys R Us.

I also ran and got a pump but couldn't use it so I would personally set the money aside for those then do a shop if you need to.

We spent around £2,000. Our icandy pushchair was £700 from John Lewis, but invaluable. We contemplated getting this second hand - BUT - it broke once so we got a new one essentially free, then the frame started sticking and they replaced that for free too whilst loaning us a pram for free whilst it got fixed, so I really would buy a new pushchair with a warranty, because it's covered then if it goes wrong. We spent around £500 on furniture, a cot, a chest of drawers and changing table in one, and a wardrobe. Homebase and Argos do nice ones, the mothercare or mamas and papas are £££££. Then we bought car seat and base, £300 ish but will last until she's 4. I would really urge you to look at a seat like the joie I-anchor advanse, a seat which does from newborn up to age 4ish, and rear face as long as you can!! No point buying a maxi cosi and base just to replace it at 9 months old, and anyway it's bad for the car seat to go on the pushchair anyway. Then we spent extra on paint, a chair for her room, a changing mat, a bath seat, highchair (60?) and baby bouncer (40?) nappies, wipes etc. So it really does add up, you're being sensible. A Moses basket cost us £50 or so, but we ended up buying a second hand crib for next to the bed because she was so long, cost us around £50 but lasted 8 months, but of course buy new mattresses for everything. I spend a fortune on clothes and still do, but no need that's just personal preference, you'll probably get gifted them like crazy! good luck! It's so exciting.

Oh, and £100 on the angelcare monitor. Having the sensor mat because I was a nervous mum was invaluable! She's 16 months and I still use it, peace of mind whilst baby sleeps is SO worth it.

I think we probably spent around £2k on the bits we bought although we were gifted some money specifically for extra baby purchases so it wasn't too bad.

Icandy peach 3 £800
Sleepyhead £100
Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep £80
Steriliser starter set £50
Playmat £15
Bouncy chair £35
Clothing (mainly second hand) £80
Monitor with sensor pad £80
Bath seat £20
Furniture £300 (ex-display)
Cot mattress £150
Isofix base £175
Maxi cost pebble £165

Add in the cost of smaller bits like blankets etc. Also bits we bought when baby was born included:

Highchair (Ikea) £19
Tommee Tippee flask £10
Car seat adaptors for pram £40
Footmuff £90
Pram seat liner £40

And loads more stuff I've probably forgotten

Oh yes I forgot about buying a new car seat when ds was 14 months, £140. In hindsight I should have got a birth-4yrs in the beginning.

I also bought a Ewan the dream sheep for £30 when ds was about 8 weeks. I really wish I'd had it from birth, it worked brilliantly for my little one

We paid -

Travel system £600 in sale Britax - amazing

For furniture look at the mamas and papas range in Argos, when they do a sale
It is ridiculously cheap. Paid £200 for cot bed, wardrobe and changing unit.

Crib - £100 John Lewis, mattress £30

Baby bath £15 amazon

Baby sheets - various sizes - this cost a lot! £100-£150 for waterproof sheets, crib sheets, pram sheets, cot bed sheets - I was astounded!

That was pretty much all I had to begin with I hadn't even bought a steriliser as intended to bf but then that didn't work so had to get bottles etc which can cost a lot working out which ones suit.

You'll get a lot of clothes etc as gifts so don't go mad with that tempting as it is! Good luck! X

You don't need a steriliser. I just use a tub of water and some steriliser tablets which cost about 60p from supermarkets. And are more convenient than a microwave or plug-in steriliser as you just take stuff out as and when you need it. I got moses baskets from Tesco's for £25 including a mattress and a bit of bedding. A pack of 2 sheets was £5. They have been invaluable as my babies like to be enclosed when they sleep and a lot cheaper than a next to me crib. I would also suggest signing up to your local Facebook pages for baby stuff including clothes. I got a moses basket stand for free from Facebook. You can then buy any special outfits you like but the main bulk of the clothes can be taken care of very cheaply or free.

My baby group are going crazy over that haakaa pump at the moment which cost £16 so maybe have a look at that because they seem to be getting some great results from it. If you don't want to breastfeed then the perfect prep machine is worth looking at.

There's no need to spend money on sleeping bags either. If used correctly and you follow safe sleeping advice, (ie nothing in the cot/moses basket/ next to me apart from the baby on a new waterproof mattress, put the baby at the foot of the cot and tuck the blankets in securely around them at chest height and no higher, no cot bumpers or anything like that) then blankets are safe and cost a fraction of what a range of sleeping bag will cost as you'll need different togs and ages.

Spend your money on stuff that's important to you. My pram cost a lot but i wanted a brand new pram. I saved a lot of money buying other stuff second hand.

My cot bed was £190 and came from Mothercare but it was on a deal which included a mattress worth £90. You really dont need a baby bath or bath seat. Just put them in the sink or hold them like they used to in the olden days!

The IKea Gulliver cot works brilliantly as a bedside for hack (one side comes off) and then later it turns into cot bed. I think it's around £55 or £65 - can never remember which. With the mattress it probably comes to about £100.

Oh also though I understand why you might want a Bee, I also live in London and have had three buggies: BAby Jogger City Mini, Obaby Zezu and Hauck Duett - all absolutely fine on buses, getting on at the front and going down the aisle so not even the back doors, and light enough to get up and down tube stairs with baby still inside! So it's definitely not just the Bee that's good for London, though it's always revered as such.

Thanks everyone, some really really useful stuff here!

When I budgeted for the cot, that was including the mattress. I was surprised how much cot mattresses costs! I'll keep an eye out for Mothercare sales. I'll also look out for a cheap second hand Moses basket, as I see their usefulness, I just didn't want to pay loads for something that would be outgrown in 8-10 weeks.

Thanks Redcrab, I'll double check measurements on the buggies you've suggested. Just almost everything I looked at was 60+cm wide, and our long narrow hallway is only 62cm wide! (yay for Victorian terraces ), where as the Bee gave us a lot more wiggle room. The only other narrow buggy I found was the Babyzen Yoyo but it seemed a travel buggy rather than an every day buggy, and the deal breaker was that it didn't parent face. Needing a very narrow buggy, which folds flat for newborn and parents faces narrowed down our options a lot! I'll check the others out, but I don't mind forking out for the Bee if it does what I need it to do as I'll use it every day and don't want a buggy that drives me crazy!

Umming and ahhing about car seats. Original plan was to get a 0-4yr rear facer from newborn (maybe the Cybex Sirona, although not keen on the restraint, of the Nuna Rebl Plus but the safety scare is offputting). This was partly to save money, partly so we can have the benefit of a swivel base from birth and also to prevent the temptation of keeping a newborn in a car seat too long.

Buuuuuut lots of mum's have told me I'll regret this, and it's so handy to lift sleeping baby out and onto pushchair frame in the early days.

So I'm to-ing and fro-ing over that one on an almost daily basis! Genuinely 50/50 on it.

I have no idea how much we spent tbh. We bought a bugaboo Donkey which was my huge splurge item, because we don't have a car so it's great for doing groceries. I bought a bugaboo bee as our travel pram off gumtree for a really good price (a Bee+), so with the new Bee5 just released you should be able to get a decent Bee3 for much less than £600. There are bugaboo dedicated Facebook pages for buy swap sell also, and people on there tend to be slightly evangelical about bugaboo so things can be in great condition!

I also really wanted the Stokke Sleepi Mini and cot, but didn't want to spend £££ on it. Found the Mini with extension attachment on Gumtree for £100 and bought new mattresses, and because of the mini size we didn't buy a Moses basket or anything. The only furniture we bought for the nursery was an antique chest of draws (its gorgeous, early Victorian mahogany thing) for £250 on eBay (including the courier fee) and I just have a change mat on top of that instead of a change table. It's huge and fits all of her clothes, nappies, wipes, muslins, spare bedding, everything.

I also would pick things up in TK Maxx if I saw anything particularly nice, like some Aden and Anais swaddles for £15, or a lovely bunny rug for £9. People will give you clothes and it's so easy to dress a baby/child very nicely for quite cheap. Most of the supermarkets have lovely children's clothes, and even M&S basic vests are only £13 for a 5 pack which would easily do us for a week. My daughter isn't sicky or dribbly so hasn't really needed many outfits as she can usually get two wears from a top before it needs washing. I also bought a 10 pack of muslins but have only used them a few times!

You can spend a LOT on baby items, but you can also have very nice things for not much money, you just need to be smart

It might just be that you need the Bee because of the hallway issue.

With regards to having the car seat base in the buggy - I really don't think this is safe. I see so many people do it as standard but there was a thread where I was asking about the two hour thing and people were saying it's even less time now. It's the neck positioning for too long, I think?

Car seat wise I would probably go for the Cybex sirona from birth with the benefit of hindsight. I occasionally put the car seat on the pram but not often and once they get to about 3 months or so they start to get really heavy!

If I were you I would get the sirona and then buy a baby carrier if you feel you need one, they are stocked in most places so you could pick one up quickly.

The impact bar on the swivel seat does seem a bit strange but it's only used when the seat is forward facing and I plan to keep ds rear facing until at least 3. After that I may look to move him into the next stage up seat anyway. If you are less bothered about the swivel function there is a sirona that retains the 5 point harness forward facing but it doesn't swivel. The swivel function was a deal breaker for me as my back is rubbish.

I bought brand new expensive bugaboo pram and isofix car seat base etc + expensive cot. Everything else second hand, lots of nct sales and eBay deals. I then sold a lot on again to make back what I needed for next stage. Eg got a jumperoo on eBay, barely used, we had it for about 5 months then sold it again for what I paid.

Also, if you really don't like the impact shield on the cybex you could consider this:

http://www.uberkids.co.uk/Product.do?method=view&n=4895&g=1178003&p=1177983&d=124&c=4&l=2&utmsource=Google&utmmmedium=Base&utmcampaign=All%20Car%20Seats&gclid=CJulvvG6hdMCFUM6Gwod05EDJw

A friend swapped the nuna for this when it failed are adac.

Not sure if the link works! It is the recaro Zero1!

The page www.rearfacing.co.uk is good for car seat advice (also fb group of same name). I'd agree with you on the carseat thing - i lifted my twins into flat pram and it was fine (although never had car seat frame so don't know what i was missing!). You can get some bargains 2nd hand. I had a friend who sold her pram as she wanted a different colour so someone got that one almost new.
As said above people are really kind (and like to get rid of stuff!). We got an awful lot passed on for free from friends. As and baby says though check if they are lending or giving and if the former mark it so you remember to give back.

Car seat depends how much you'll use the car. Many of the good ERF ones aren't great for newborns anyway, some of the ones suitable for newborns don't last once they get to toddler ages.

I would say as a non driver I didn't get one which went on the pram and I wished I had because it would have been useful for lift one way, public transport the other days. I think there is a lot of scaremongering about babies in car seats but in reality, avoid as much as poss while they are tiny, don't let them sleep in it overnight and don't leave them in it all day, and you're good.

I did use a sidecar cot and definitely recommend them, but I just converted a normal one. The ikea cots work for this (and are standard sizes if you want a better mattress) and so would any cotbed, which also converts to a toddler bed later.

One more thing about wanting to save money by buying things with a longer lifespan. If you plan to have more children you might be buying into a false economy. I know you're not really thinking about DC2 right now but might be worth bearing in mind at what point you're likely to want a second cot, car seat, pram etc and if DC1 is still using it because you've picked a superduper one which lasts until 5 years old perhaps you'll have to buy another, and then do you go basic or also fancy? Same with things like that maxi cosi base which works for multiple car seats. Sometimes they come up with things which sound like a great deal when you're pregnant but in reality aren't all that practical.

Also, just a thought on the pram side of things but have you looked at the mama's and papa's armadillo flip? I think that's quite narrow and I know people always seem to be positive about it.