Does anyone else find it impossible to give away their used baby paraphanelia let alone sell it?

[Xanthipi]

I've got some decent stuff, scrubbed down. OK the pram is ugly (as prams were 8 yrs ago) but everything else is quite tiptop and useable.

I posted flyers for a garden sale. No one came round.

Then some friends had a baby. They don't have much money. I offered them my stuff. But they said, No, they'd rather buy it new. (They hadn't even seen my stuff.)

Charity shops near me don't take pushchairs etc.

A friend said she'd attempted to give her baby stuff to a refugee home/organization, but they didn't want it either.

So what to do? I overheard some mums at my son's school laughing about taking all their baby stuff to the tip. They've quite a lot of money, so maybe aren't too bothered about throwing things away so easily.

Or maybe it just is impossible to find a home for these things?

I'd have been thrilled to use recycled baby equipment. But I was the first of my friends/family to have a baby and no one I knew had any to give or loan.

With everyone trying to be green and so forth, is seems so strange that everyone seems to want to buy their baby equipment new.

have you tried freecycle?

Have you got a freecycle group near you? I gave my cot away and a big bag of lovely baby bits to a really grateful young Mum by putting an add on here (and now i've got a spare room again!)

Do the odd car boot sale too...

Try Freecycle - I've got rid of a few things this way to nice community-spirited type people. People are strange though, aren't they - I love car-boot sales, and hate waste.

2nd vote for freecycle

I freecycled DS' old pram last week.

I had tried to sell it beofre with no luck, it was in good condition but 4 years old and not the latest trendiest style.

I did a boot sale last year and took some baby equipment and sold a huge load of stuff to one person.

I had 10 e-mails for my travel system, Issy

when that happens it makes you wish you had more than one

Howzabout EBay? I have bought a whole load of baby stuff from there dead cheap and really easily. Bidding is quite fun too!

loot.com is online and ads go into local press.
here

There is also mn ads

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll try freecycle first, since the majority of you suggested it.

I just checked Issy's link. . . .but I don't quite understand how it works. Do I have to become a member?

When I was pregnant my mum got hold of two travel systems for us, we've used both and swapped over, one at home in London, one at mum's in Ilkley. I've bought a buggy for more portability but am still using the pram because baby likes being able to sleep in it.

Freecycle is usually through email lists, and you do have to join, but if you're not looking to get stuff then you could choose an option whereby you don't get swamped in emails - individual emails are better if you think you might be interested in stuff others have finished with. Lots of baby stuff on my local one as well as my mum's.

Just get your basement flooded while away on for 2 weeks and then you have to junk it all as it's mouldy.

DS is 6 now but I had kept everything in hopes of another and had lent stuff to friends and got everything back.

I regularly talk to one of the men who sells the big issue, he told me that his girlfriend was pregnant again and I offered them the whole roomfull of stuff if they had somewhere to live and somebody to fetch it, his social worker arranged to hire and drive a van and lots of people came to help him, I was happy because it had gone to people that would use it.