List of Things for When the Baby Arrives

[MerryBlessings]

Hello ladies,

I'm a new expectant mum (EDD 24th of Dec) and being a bit of a control freak/list writer I'm wanting to find a good list of all the things that we need to buy before he/she arrives. I'd just like to start getting an idea of how much money we need to put aside over the next few months.

Also while you're there does anyone know if you can eat parma ham? I'm confused!

Sorry if this is somewhere else but I can't find it!

Thanks in advance,

MBxx

The biggest expense is likely to be the pram / pushchair, followed by a cot.

A sling is handy, decent change bag and monitor. TBH it's been 4 years since I had to do it so I can't remember it all!

You can get baby clothes dead cheap these days from supermarkets. Its much easier to keep them in sleepsuits when they are small. Although with a winter baby you'll need some cosy snow suits too. You will probably be inundated with clothes and toys when they baby arrives so don't go too crazy buying stuff now.

Find out when your next NCT nearly new sale is as you can get great bargains from there. I recently sold dd's old cot at our sale for £12 and it was only 18 months old and cost £70 new.

Not sure about parma ham actually. And congratulations.

Hi Merry....just to answer your question about parma ham I had the same question as I love it in my salads but have read that because it is a cured meat you should avoid it because of toxoplasmosis and listeriosis risk oh well...just a few (!) more months to go for us! I'll be eating like a king at Christmas time!

First thing to say - congratulations! 2nd thing is great idea to write a list but dont rush out to buy things. From my experience with dd when she was born, so many people bought presents - mostly clothes from family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, our parents work colleages. Everyone seems to love buying for babies! Thats where I wished i had known this in advance then we could have saved a fortune on all the clothes we bought, I think the usa have the right idea with a baby shower. We also had family coming forward offering to buy things for us and at one point we had to say sorry but weve got everything we need - again a shame as it could have saved us money! Once dd was born we were given substantial financial gifts. Some wanted it put into ctf and others said to buy the baby something so again we could have saved money as we were struggling a bit financially at the time.

I divided my list into categories, clothing etc for me, clothing for baby, bathing, sleeping, travel, feeding, hospital bag, health and safety, playtime, coming home.

You can then create a new list or highlight the bits that can wait until baby is born e.g. I had all the weaning stuff but you dont do that till 5/6 months so could have waited till dd was born and we could have taken advantage of the vouchers and cash given or when relatives asked what they could buy us I could have then said highchair.

I love writing lists so could certainly tell you lots more, and im a major bargain hunter so could certainly say a lot more but didnt want to completely take over your thread!

I definitely agree with others on here - people will offer to buy stuff after you've bought everything you need, so wait until 7 or 8 months if you can bear it (doesn't stop you making loads of lists, though!). I wish we'd bought a better pushchair; we got one that was about £160 or so (it was a travel system), but it was too big and heavy, and once DS was too big for the car seat bit, we stopped using it because the pushchair bit was rubbish. A friend got a really good one from eBay, for about a third of what it would have been new, and it was in great nick.

Nappies, wipes, sleepsuits, bodysuits, cardigans.
A few blankets.
Muslin squares.
SOmething to ride in when you're in car.
Something to ride in when you're walking.
Moses basket.
Feeding stuff if not bfing. Nursing bras and pads if bfing.

Don't buy anything else - you'll be inundated with your first baby. And if you discover you need something quickly, most supermarkets will sell anything you desperately need.

Many congratulations btw!

Oh and wrt parma ham, check Food Standards Agency (or is it food safety agency?) They have latest guidelines. Tbh, I have eaten fancy-arsed cheeses, etc this time round as the risk is tiny, but no idea about meats. (veggie).

FSA

Oh pushchairs...most of the people I know with children have had pushchair issues, being too big and heavy as already mentioned is the common problem. Umbrella fold are the kind that fold like strollers so are ideal for public transport and dont take much space in the boot of the car so you can fit your shopping in. I drooled over a lovely silvercross travel system tho by the time you added on the car seat, pram accessory, matching changing bag, raincover etc etc it was £500 for the lot. I thought about what £500 would buy me and had restraint, bearing in mind i knew once the baby was old enough for a stroller (3 months) I would use that all the time as they are light, can fold with one hand, take up little space and are easy to push. We spent £160 on a graco travel system with raincover and car base and was rubbish tbh, i would have another graco but this was a 3 wheeler which i hate but it was good value but the front wheel didnt turn, had to lift the buggy slightly to get round corners. Tho i would def go for a travel system again. Once the car seat part was too small we got a mamas and papas reduced from £200 to £67 omg it was awful - massive, heavy and difficult to unfold, sometimes got stuck so luckily we were able to get a refund. In the end i got what i had always wanted a maclaren stroller, I love it, its easy to fold, very nippy, light and it turns corners! What I learnt from my experience is to take a note of the weight and how it folds and try and find customer reviews, im looking at kiddicare.com for my next baby as theres some bargains on there tho if you go into a shop you can try them out but then again i got my graco at toys r us but didnt try it on corners. My friend got a mamas and paps with the pram accessory and the full works, within weeks she was using a stroller, she said by the time you folded the frame the boot was full, pram bit on the back seat, changing bag etc on front seat - she had no room for passengers it was heavy and such a faff, looked gorgeous but wasnt practical. As ive got the stroller im going for a cheap travel system to get through the 9 months i will use it for, after that the strusted stroller comes out!

I asked my doctor about Parma ham and cold meats because my partner is Italian and it's their staple diet!

Doctor said he didn't know!

I have read some things which say in America they tell pregnant ladies to avoid the cold meat counter. As far as I am aware there are no official guidelines in the UK against it.

Hope this helps you make a decision.

• some meals frozen in freezer for first few weeks so you don't have to worry about cooking
• someone to come around and help a bit who doesn't mind doing a bit of washing up or getting thing from shop for you so you can a) rest b) spend time with partner mooning over gorgeous new baby
• comfy pyjamas and bathrobe
• cards to send out to announce birth
• some good dvds/books/audio books

Def. recommend being restrained with regards to: - pram/pushchair (might like a sling to start when baby is 0-3 mths, then you will know more of what you want)

• NCT sale. Because little babies grow so quickly, the baby clothes there are often in very good condition. I got some lovely super quality clothes and toys at the sale, which were better than I could have afforded if I was buying new.
• champagne to celebrate

Congratulations!

Congratulations! Parma ham is fine when cooked i think, for example we often wrap it round chicken breasts and back in the oven. I don't think i'd eat it straight from the packet, much as i love it like that...

There's a grat book by Which here

which really helped me get my head around what you need versus what everyone is trying to sell you. Also, helped with some decision making because it has lots of questions to ask yourself about, eg will the buggy your looking at: fit in your car, go through your front door, need to fit on the bus, need to go on rough terrain etc etc

It helps decoding some of the language too!

Chances are that a) you need a lot less than you think you do and b) a lot more can be bought secondhand/hand me downs.

Strongly recommend stocking the freezer though!

Essentials for after the birth are nice oatcakes, decent pate and a glass of red wine. Those are the really vital things IME.

Otherwise if you have some huge pants, a few babygros and vests, some nappies, breastpads, a sling and a carseat, you'll be fine. Babies need next to nothing, despite what Mothercare tries to tell us!

Moses basket is essential. You always have somewhere to put baby in an emergency (no running upstairs to put in cot) and sleeping baby can be moved to any room with you.

Also, would make sure camera and computer are in good order (lots of photos to send to family/friends). We had just bought a new camera luckily when ds1 was born, as old camera died week before birth.

Don't be fooled, like a previous poster said, babies actually need very little. Something I won't be buying this time round, for example, is a baby bath - pain to empty and take up too much room, only to be useless after a few months. I have NEVER bought a changing table and still won't and I REFUSE to spend best part of £900 on all the requisite parts of a bugaboo regardless of how amazing it is supposed to be.

tanmu I'm going to disagree with you. I got a cheap changing table from ikea (£24 I think) and it is a godsend if you have a c section and can't keep bending over!

OP don't be tempted to buy special wardrobes etc... total waste of money. Other pointless item is baby towels (IMO) just use ordinary small towels!

Do buy muslins, lots of, so useful for everything.
I also vote for bouncy chair, doesn'#t need to be expensive, mothercare does a basic one for £12, so useful for sticking baby in when you need to go to loo etc, also great for sitting baby in while you scoff down your dinner while you bounce them with your foot!

Humpty you make sense! I would have agreed on the changing table being pointless but then i never had a c section so yes i can see it would be useful. And right about the towels im not bothering with the hooded ones next time, the bath towels asda sell are about £4 each and wash lovely and more than big enough for my dd who is now 3. Also agree with you on the wardrobes!

Would be interested to know your uses for muslin as i bought some and had no idea what they were for with dd!

DH picked us a £40 bouncy chair which i thought was a bit of a splurge but i had to let him choose something for the baby! And in actual fact as it was a low one the baby was almost lying down in it, it was ideal to pop the baby down in, once we were at the weaning stage we got an infant to toddler rocker which was brilliant and wish i had just bought that in the first place as lasts longer than a usual bouncer, and is ideal to use for feeding small children before progressing to a high chair, i think up to age 3 or 4 as a rocking chair.

THANK YOU SO MUCH LADIES!!! So useful and so nice to have people reply

I have put together a list from other lists I found around the web. I would love to know peoples opinion on what should be on/off the list, what you think will likely be given as gifts, what is best to buy new and what is good to borrow/nearly new.

Thanks ladies, you've made my day!

Urm would be good to post list then...oh dear hormone brain over here . Here you go:

Clothing
3 hats
6 long sleeved bodies
6 sleep suits
6 short sleeved vests
4 t-shirts
4 pairs of socks
3 complete outfits
2 matinee coats
Bootees
Snowsuit
2 cardigans/jumpers
Scratch mittens

Sleeping
Moses basket
Cot/Cot bed
Cot bumpers
Mattress
4 fitted sheets
2 cellular blankets
Sleeping bag
Baby monitor
Room thermometer

Getting Around
Lambskin inlay for cold days
Buggee
Car seat
Sling
Nappy Bag

Bath
Baby bath
Sponges
Baby wash
Bath thermometer
Two baby towels (hooded)
Talc

Nappies
Nappy cream
Nappy bucket
Nappy sterilizer
Disposable nappies
Real nappies
Changing mat
Wipes
Baby lotion

Breast Feeding
Maternity bras
Breast pads (either disposable or reusable)
Curved feeding pillow
2 bottles
Bottle brush
Breast pump
Nipple covers
Nipple cream
6 Muslin squares

Ok, heres my views!
Clothing
Hats - 3 about right,good to have quite a few but many of the outfits I was bought came with matching hats

Long sleeve vests - bought several, used none! Never seemed to work under sleepsuit and quite fiddly to get baby's arms in sleeves.

Sleepsuits and vests - buy loads (NCT sale or supermarket), seems to take ages to fill a white wash with tiny clothes and, with leaky poos, you can go through ten a day!!

Outfits/t-shirts/jackets - get them if you want (and who can resist!)but you'll get bought lots of outfits and it's much easier to leave them in sleepsuits anyway.

Snowsuit - I would getone in 0-3 size as its quite difficult to get floppy newborn into it and they never wake up when you're outside anyway, so blankets are fine.

Scratchmits - decide when your baby is born, none of mine have ever scratched themselves, and you can buy scratchmits from most places (or swaddle if your baby likes it).

If this is too waffly, let me know and will not do the rest of the categories. Please dont worry about offending, my DS (aged 4) informed me earlier that he'd like to be a mummy when he grows up because then he wouldnt have to do anything all day

No keep going I'm loving it!

Thanks!

Sleeping
Moses Basket. I have had one each time, but often used it to transport things up the stairs at the end of the day!! I think that if you have a bouncy chair, which will last til your baby is older, you can manage without one, but if you can pick one up cheaply (mine came from a car boot sale and I just replaced the matress)they can make life easier.

Cot/Cot bed.This is going to last your baby til they're two/three (unless you have another in the meantime!)so worth getting a decent one, and definitely replace the matress (the FSID recommend this and you'll only lose sleep if you dont, and the last thing you wnat is the loss of more sleep).I had a hand me down cot and replaced the mattress.

Cot bumper.Dont do it!! FSID again recommend not, but also when the cot's next to your bed a bumper might stop you watching your baby sleeping,and, if you're like me, this is likely to be one of your favourite occupations .

Sheets.Pick them up cheaply cos if you have a sicky baby you'll change them a lot.

Blankets/Sleeping bag.This will be either or, so perhaps get one of each initially so you can decide what you want to go for.(The blanket will be tucked far enough down to avooid the sick when your baby is tiny!

Monitor.Some people swear by them,I was lent one with my first and spent so long with my ear next to the receiver that it was quicker to go upstairs and check! I dont think this is urgent as you'll have your baby with yoou most of the time for the fist couple of months.

Room thermometer.Never had one, but I think this would have stressed me out more.Along the lines of, open window a crack, turn heating down,close the window again,put extra sheet on,open window of next door room and leave baby's door open,take sheet off baby.Walk downstairs, baby wakes up! But see how you go, I may just have been overly stressy.

Getting out.
Do you drive and will you have access to a car?
If yes, then go for a travel system, at least then if baby goes to sleep in the car you can keep them asleep as long as possible.

Having said that, if you use buses a lot I would also suggest a travel system, so that you dont have to hand your baby to a random stranger while you fold down the buggy .

But I think that when your baby outgrows the car seat you are likely to want a stroller type buggy, which will be lighter and easier to transport and store.Bitter experience of the handle snapping a mile from home with a toddler in tow makes me suggest not going for the cheapest buggy available.

Naqppy bag.Very useful, although I bought a large handbag for DC3 as I was fed up of looking like a rambler/school boy.However,exploring all the pockets is quite fun with your first baby.

Sling.I have got one but I never used it with my DC1 as didnt really have to juggle a lot.My DH was once happy to come home to no dinner and lots of mess because I had carried my DS around all day.However,he works away now and DC3 spent a lot of time in the sling initially to enable me to feed and water DC's 1&2.

My main tip for all these items is to practise with them before your baby arrives. Otherwise you and whoever collects you from hospital will enjoy a hissed argument about who should know how the carseat goes in the car . Or you will have to try to fit your uncollapsed pushchair into the front seat of the car because you dont know how to fold it down .The joys of first time parentiing.

Im loving the advice too, im ttc #2 so will be needing to purschase some stuff. You are right about thermometer. Weve got grobag egg one that lights up - if its yellow its the right temperature if its orange, red or blue you are flapping like a loon! I have to admit to begin with tho we used blankets for a few months so just used intuition really, then moved onto sleeping bag which takes all the guesswork out as you dont use blankets with them.

We got a cotbed but never used the bed aspect, straight into single bed to free cot up for a new arrival (this is perfect as if dd is poorly she needs someone sleeping with her and that suits me so easier in single bed than cotbed! So really we could have got away with just a normal cot which are of course cheaper!

Never used a baby monitor or talc and used disposable nappies so never needed all the stuff that goes with washable. Didnt breast feed, was going to, only got as far as buying the breast pump before i changed my mind.

Tell you whats missing...hospital bag! pjs, dressing gown, towel, few toiletries, clothing that should fit after the birth, food to keep you going if hospital food is awful or for dh when visiting bearing in mind labour can last for hours. Also maternity pads. You can bleed for a few weeks after, its worth getting some they are £1 a pack for 10 get several and introduce other half to where they can be located in the shop in case he has to go for more, I was using about 6-8 of these a day. They also recommend keeping down below clean for this reason especially if had stitches so i had a jug to pour warm water down there each time i went to the loo, also gives you confidence to pee again! Painkillers are handy to have at home too. And of course a bag for baby - lots of clothes!

Do you have one of those v shaped pillows? I got one for sleeping with, perch bump on one bit and other bit between the legs, then when baby is born use it for feeding or sitting or in bed so it has multiple uses.

I wouldnt worry so much about quantities of clothing, i remember looking at lists telling me how many of each item and counting them and ticking them off but for a newborn you can never have enough sleepsuits and bodysuits. You wont want to put washer on for half a dozen things so you let them build up to at least get half a load, but tbh as already said, baby sick and leaky nappies, oh and the weeing on the sleepsuit while you are changing a nappy all contribute to many clothing changes in those early days!

We put a pack of nappies in the trolly most weeks and ended up with a huge pile of a whopping 500 nappies and thought dd would outgrow them but we got to out last pack and they were starting to get too small! We got the johnsons bath stuff when on bogof and were given loads but dd has sensitive skin so its infacare all the time now so will just use that on the next one to save me and dh having to use johnsons for months on end!

granted humpty, I've never had a section - I either changed baby on my knee (whilst still small enough) or on bed/floor, with mat of course.

As for the list posted, I still don't think a baby bath is necessary though so I would scratch that off the list of essentials. As for clothes, how do you decide that 4/6 is the right number of anything? Babies need changing quite often, so I would rather have an excess of sleepsuits/vests/bibs so that I didn't need to wash every 5 mins. Same goes for socks - they get lost/seperated so easily I'd go for more than 4 pairs....though I do love clothes shopping, so maybe I go overboard there a little......

Agree with what others are saying. You will get so many presents you will never be out of M&S changing stuff/getting money back. So tempting as it is go easy on the clothes buying. You will not need three hats, your baby has only one head! My baby (12 weeks) is pretty much exclusively dressed in babygros as I can't be arsed putting him in "proper" stuff. You will get so many of the complete outfits there is no need to buy (I think I worked out we got over 50 presents for our baby - that's a lot of clothes!!!)

I am not sure about cot bumpers - I thought they were not recommeded. The sleeping bags are good things to ask people for as presents. You probably won't need a room thermometer, you will be able to tell if the room is too hot or cold.

Personally I loathe nappy bags I have a great Hop-Skip nappy roll thing and a thermo bag for bottles, both of which will fit in my handbag along with all my own crap essential items.

Baby bath - not really necessary, they weigh a ton with water in them, if you are nervous you can get wee support things so they won't slip. You will not need a bath thermometer. I had one - never, ever used it. Again, don't think talc is recommended for use on babies.

Two changing mats, one upstairs - one downstairs.

Other essentials - an i-phone (!!), digital thermometer (for taking child's temp), my baby loves his floor mat thing (again good to ask for as a present). We bought a really expensive pram (£700) but that was for a carrycot thing, the car seat, footmuff and main pushchair. It is pretty heavy but we like its durability (it's on baby no 2)

HTH