No matter how consciously you approach the birth of a child, no matter how many books you read and no matter how many courses you take to prepare yourself as young parents, the “nesting syndrome” will surely catch up with you.
Slips and bodysuits, bottles and pacifiers, diapers, diapers with some kind of prints.
Stop!
There are things that you really need, and there are things that you don’t need to spend money on.
The first rule of parenthood: before you buy something, think: do you or your child really need it? And then look again at the thing you almost bought and put it back in its place. The money you save could be put to better use. So, let’s look at what we will save on:
1. Dresser with changing table
This piece of furniture certainly looks impressive. Especially if it is also decorated with pretty bear cubs, bunnies and other attributes of childhood. You can easily dream about how you will stand near him, swaddle the baby, and a convenient organizer will hang on the side, in which diapers, powder, wet wipes will be laid out in pockets – cute!
In fact, a chest of drawers with a changing table, or, even more so, with a bath, is a completely optional thing. Especially if you have nowhere to put it – you should not lament. In order to store children’s things in the first year of a child’s life, one drawer in your chest of drawers or a shelf in your closet will be enough.
You can swaddle (or rather, change a diaper and change clothes) your child on a bed or any other horizontal surface that you can sit next to. And for this you will not need anything, except perhaps a diaper (you can choose a prettier one) or, better, an air mattress, which is not only convenient to wash, but you can also take with you anywhere.
If it is more convenient for you to change your child’s diaper while standing, you can buy a changing board that is installed on a crib (in the photo above, just like that, just installed on a chest of drawers). It costs 10 times cheaper than a special table, and takes up the same amount of space.
2. Fancy crib
We do not in any way encourage you to become adherents of co-sleeping. Each family decides for itself the question of where to sleep for their child: in a crib, a cradle, a wicker basket, a cocoon in the middle of the parent’s bed, or even in a separate room in his bed from birth.
But a fancy crib, to which a mattress is immediately purchased, soft sides, a canopy (which also needs to be washed every other day), bed linen and a crib mobile which costs a lot of money, or it may happen that the child simply will not sleep in it.
It is much easier to rent a bassinet and see how your child and you are compatible with this format of a night’s sleep. And after that, decide on the purchase of large-scale furniture.
3. Baby sling
A mobile mother proudly striding down the street with a baby in a sling is beautiful. Indeed, there is an infinite number of colors, prints, materials… Only the baby sling needs to be bought according to your size (and it can change after childbirth, and in both directions).
Plus, it may turn out that winding six meters of fabric around you is not for you at all. Or the child will refuse to calmly comprehend the world from this perspective.
Rent a baby sling from a friend, walk around for a couple of days – and you will understand how comfortable you and your baby are. And then you can be sure about the necessity of it, or even better ask your friends to give it to you as a baby shower gift.
4. Postpartum belly wrap
Buying a postpartum belly wrap or bandage in advance is at least strange. Yes, manufacturers offer a universal 2 in 1 option that serves during pregnancy and after childbirth, but such a purchase will not fully perform its functions.
The essence of a postpartum bandage is support, and you must definitely buy it with fitting. But how can you try on something when you don’t know what size you will be?
5. Nursing underwear
Another sizing story. Breasts during pregnancy, of course, increase and change their shape. But this is nothing compared to what will happen to them when the milk comes. For some, the size of the breast does not change at all, while for others it doubles. Therefore, we refer to the nursing underwear to the category of things that are better to buy after childbirth.
6. Swings, bouncers and other rocking gadgets
On the one hand, this thing is, of course, useful: it frees your hands and creates the illusion of freedom. But there are at least five rocking mechanisms, and it is not known which of them will appeal to a child who is still rocked with your measured walking.
So it makes sense to choose this gadget only if you have a child in your arms, who can be put in this accessory to test all the ways of rocking. However, there are experts who say that you should not keep babies in a baby bouncer for a long time.
7. 3-in-1 baby stroller
Market research conducted by future and current parents in an attempt to choose the best for their child is a real time waster, worse than choosing a smartphone and a tv series. And buying an item that will combine the functions of the other three (sleeping stroller, stroller, infant carrier) seems like the perfect way to solve several problems at once.
Trying to save money, pay attention to the quality of the stroller. Options “3 in 1” or even “4 in 1” usually really cost less than two strollers (with a cradle and a stroller) and an infant carrier, but at the same time they can be inferior to them in quality – they can be rather bulky, weigh decently, not provide full security.
But you still don’t know how you will feel after giving birth, and whether you will be able to lift the heavy cradle with the baby if necessary or not.
8. Baby weighing scale
So far, despite everything, many people of the older generation insist that a baby must be weighed before and after feeding in order to monitor how he is gaining weight.
And electronic scales, and even with a built-in height meter, are offered for every taste and budget. But this is the most useless gadget of all. It is enough to weigh the child once a month at the pediatrician’s appointment.
Do your older relatives really want to give you something useful? Ask them to buy a certificate for you to your favorite children’s clothing store. Or let them give an infrared thermometer – this is a really useful gadget that will help take care of the child’s health.
9. Baby bath
This bathing accessory takes up an incredible amount of space in the bathroom. You need to figure out where to store the bath, and where to put it so that it is convenient to bathe the baby.
Of course, it reduces anxiety to some extent: bathing in it is calmer than in a large bath. But until you take the child in your arms, you will not understand the degree of your confidence. Maybe, you will completely prefer to bathe him in the sink at first.
And you will always have time to buy a bath: this is the item that everyone gets rid off with pleasure, as soon as the child reaches 6-8 months and ceases to fit in it.
A fashionable thermometer for measuring water temperature is also superfluous: you will still try the water with your hand.
10. Playpen
The dream of all grandparents (and not only) – putting it in the middle of the room, putting the child inside and then to sit and rest. He won’t run away. But, as always, there is a nuance. Not all children are ready to sit in a confined space, even if there are a lot of toys of all stripes and calibers around. And not all parents are ready to put a child in a cage.
Whether it will be comfortable for you is impossible to predict. As well as predicting the behavior of an infant when he reaches the age suitable for buying a playpen.
It is possible that when he is six months old, you will begin to confess life on the floor, cover the entire apartment with soft puzzles, or simply put security gates in the kitchen and office.
Or maybe you would prefer to wash the floors more often and give the child complete freedom of movement. Then the playpen will just stand sadly in a box in the corner and wait for its finest hour, which will never come.
11. Subscription to diapers
Another new trend: buying a subscription and living in peace for a year. And diapers are delivered to you but of course, from a strictly defined brand. This is where the problem lies: they may not suit a child.
It is for this reason that manufacturers of baby diapers offer models of the NB category (new born, that is, for newborns, they are up to 5 kg) in small packages. No matter how wonderful personal hygiene products are, they may simply not be suitable for a child. So it is not uncommon to have to try out 2-5 types before settling on just one.
12. Baby clothes for the future
Children’s things are beauty and cuteness, from the purchase of which it is simply impossible to resist. Miniature socks, caps and hats (you don’t need a lot of them, by the way), bodysuits and slips with and without legs, blouses and T-shirts. And there is no need to talk about dresses for 3-month-old babies with hair bands as accessories.
But you can hardly predict at what pace the child will grow (bought things conditionally “for the summer” may eventually turn out to be small or large). And most importantly, you can hardly imagine how often you will go out to walk with all this beauty. A baby really doesn’t need a lot of clothes.
13. Educational toys
An endless number of rattles, interactive animals that can sing a song and at the same time show colored circles on the wall, rustling, ringing blocks and bunnies playing Mozart on all instruments – the world of children’s toys is so huge that you can get lost in it.
But all these toys, by and large, are needed first of all by parents. “So that it’s not worse than Jennifer’s”, “I didn’t have so many toys in my childhood.” And a small child does not need anything but warm hands and the lively voice of his parents.
And more and more experts urge not to litter the nursery with a lot of toys. It is even considered harmful to the development of fantasy and imagination.
So it’s definitely not worth starting the journey of equipping the nursery with all kinds of toys before childbirth: they will give you so many more that you won’t know where to put all the batteries that you pull out of them so that another plush animal doesn’t scare you at night with its sudden meow.