Baby on a budget?

[emmajeanb4u]

@gaiealiyly You can get EVERYTHING used EXCEPT a car seat and a crib mattress. If you’re willing to consider cloth diapering, there are charities that may provide you with some for free (it’s not all together as bad as people say it is). Check out the Facebook marketplace, and out out an ad of your own looking for things. Many times you can find free or super inexpensive

 

[levend]

@gaiealiyly Where i live If you take a carseat saftley a
Class thru your local health department you can get a free car seat and they will teach you how to install.Also if you have a once upon a child near you.That place is amaxing you get really good stuff some brand new for really cheap like oneies they usually have 20 lf them for $10.It really helped me with my foster to adopt daughters clothes.Be weary of craigslist items make sure to ask if from a pet free smoke free home because some people wont tell you unless you ask.Goodwills are somtimes a hit and miss but with the quarantine a lot of people have taken items to goodwills and there in good shape just make sure u wipe it down and you can get baby walkers and things thay way.But i would defintly ask your local health deparment for the carseat safety class.
Hope this helps

 

[graceeanna]

@gaiealiyly I got a bouncy seat off Facebook market for $5. Realized it was actually the portable infant seat from a pack n play, but it literally works just as well as the expensive bouncy seat I had with my first. Vibrates & bounces just the same + came with a canopy so that was a bonus as we can take it outside!

If you’re near a TJ Maxx/Marshalls & comfortable going out, just about everything was on clearance in my stores & they have a ton of baby gear!

 

[katrina2017]

@gaiealiyly You don't need fancy things to raise a baby.

Go on Facebook marketplace, your local facebook buy/sell pages, offerup and you will find tons of cheap or free baby stuff.

 

[rain2yu]

@gaiealiyly One big thing for me that has been helpful is using apps like Mercari (there’s plenty of other ones too) Where you can sell things that you’re done using and use the balance to buy more things! I frequently sell things my daughter has grown out of and use the balance to get her new things as she grows. Mercari is cool because you can sell pretty much anything on there, not just kids stuff or whatever. I’ve had a lot of success with it.

I also second cloth diapering! You can also get cloth diapers second hand.

 

[shirely]

@gaiealiyly If you are not having a diaper party and can swing it, buy a box of diapers every week or so while you are pregnant so you won't have that added expense once the baby arrives. Make sure you vary the sizes, store brand has worked great for us (we use the BJs brand) until she started sleeping through the night, then we started buying overnights Huggies (about size 4).

The only store brand she didn't do well with was the Kidgets (family dollar) brand, she got a rash from it. Of course, cloth diapers are reusable and therefore cheaper, but I just didn't have the time or energy for that.

 

[snjeri]

@shirely She already said in another comment that they will cloth diaper. I new even before getting pregnant that I will only use those, but the least of my concern was the money saving actually.

 

[katrina2017]

@gaiealiyly New car seat, doesn’t need bells and whistles. Just make sure you can get a good install and you’re set. Most everything else preloved. I love my halo bassinest, all the rage when I had my first baby which was pre-snoo. Lots of them on marketplace. If you can swing a used halo and get a nice new halo mattress ($30 on amazon) that would be ideal.

If you can manage to find used glass baby bottles— thats amazing. Glass doesn’t break down. They don’t get worn like plastic ones do, so hard will be identical to new. I love my glass baby bottles. But definitely get new nipples. Nipples should only be used for around three months max, Definitely not something to go used on

 

[mornings11]

@gaiealiyly Everyone is saying not to buy a used car seat but I was given mine as a hand me down from my best friend. Because I know her, I trust that she's not lying when she said they've never been in an accident. I know they almost never drive (they live in the city and drive very little), and I felt good about knowing the history of the item. The model does not expire for several years, and would have cost us $250 to buy new.

The same friend gifted me her entire maternity wardrobe (we are the same size) and the entire wardrobe and toys for her daughter, who was born at the same time of year, so the sizes are seasonally appropriate.

The point being, do not be shy about accepting hand me downs from friends (if this opportunity arises). You are doing them a favor by letting them clean out their closets, and everyone likes to know that their belongings can live a second life with someone they know and care about, rather than sitting in a bin outside of goodwill, waiting to be sorted.

 

[oppmuntre]

@mornings11 I think this is a good point. My stepsister was selling her car seat and unfortunately we’d just bought one, but I would definitely have taken hers otherwise. You just need to know that you can trust it hasn’t been in an accident, and you can’t trust a stranger to be honest about that if they need the money, unless maybe it’s pristine with the tags on.

 

[polywog1152085]

@gaiealiyly Check your FB market place!! My mom found us a beautiful wooden matching crib and dresser set for $75!

 

[mrsaboyer]

@gaiealiyly Pop video baby monitor into amazon. We have 2 cameras by cacagoo and they are awesome. They are cheap, use an SD card, and are fully controlled through my smart phone and can be accesed from anywhere because they are on wifi.

We were given 2 seperate traditional baby monitors and have had nothing but problems with them like they interfere with the wifi signal in our house our we can't see both babies (yes, twins).

I love these monitors and after we are done using them for the babies I am going to turn them into security cameras!

 

[mrsaboyer]

Also, I turned an old microwave stand into a change table with some paint and a changing pad I bought online. It looks just like the $200 one I wanted for super cheap. Lots of storage and is the perfect height.

 

[snjeri]

@gaiealiyly We are also on a budget, but for me it's also important to be sustainable and minimalist. I'm due in November so the list may change but this is what I thought of buying so far (didn't really get anything yet):

• A simple mattress we can put next to ours (we sleep on the floor), preferably second hand
• Cloth diapers, in combination with EC, everything second hand.
• My MIL sews regularly and has a ton of wool and cotton material, so I will mostly sew/knit the wool covers, a couple of wool puddle/changing pads and use the cotton for burp clothes and for wipes. I also found a nice wool blanket at her place that I will use as a swaddle.
• A few bottles and probably a pump, but I'll have to look into that yet if I can buy it used
• wet bags, either sew them myself or buy second hand. We will use a big plastic box with lid we already have as a diaper pail for home
• baby cream (which I heard you don't really need when you use clothe diapers) will be coconut oil
• Lanolin, but if you go for PUL covers and not wool, you don't need that
• baby clothes second hand, compatible with EC (I will probably also knit something)
• some plastic bows as potty in the first few months, and a normal potty from when my baby can sit
• a sling to carry the baby, maybe a mei-tai for my boyfriend. We won't buy a stroller and we don't have a car, but once we can afford it, we will probably buy a bicycle trailer

That covers the first 6 months if I can manage breastfeeding. We don't need any special baby food from 6 months, I will make purees and mostly will try baby lead weaning anyway, so the baby can eat whatever we eat. I will only plan to buy a few extra stuff for eating, like smaller cutlery, a shirt protector while eating (not sure about the name in English), a baby chair and a smaller glass he/she can drink from. My boyfriend wants to learn wood carving and wants to make wooden toys, and we can buy whatever else we need in the thrift store for that, but we won't buy many toys for sure.

 

[oppmuntre]

@snjeri Just FYI, make sure the baby’s mattress has some sort of sides to it. You’d be amazed how much they can move even as newborns over the course of a few hours - we’d wake up to discover my week-old son would be at 90 degrees from how we put him in the crib. If you just have a mattress, they’re probably going to wiggle enough to fall off at some point, and even a fall of a few inches can be dangerous for a tiny baby if they land on their head. Now at 7 months he regularly does laps of the cot in his sleep, so it’s definitely necessary to pen them in to keep them safe at night!

Otherwise your list sounds good we use cloth and coconut oil is basically all we have needed as a cream, though you’ll probably want to have some antiseptic cream in house too, because it’s not super expensive but if your baby has a sore bottom in the middle of the night, you won’t want to wait until morning to treat it. It doesn’t happen regularly with cloth in my experience, but it can still happen.

 

[snjeri]

@oppmuntre Thanks, I didn't think babies can move so young. I just checked the mattress and it is 7cm thick, we will have it right next to ours but there will be a bit of space to the wall. Do you think I still need something? I am not sure what I can come up with, because I kinda wanted to co-sleep but our mattress is a bit too narrow and that is why I came up with a mattress solution right next to ours.
Also, what kind of antiseptic cream do you reccommend?

 

[oppmuntre]

@snjeri Lol, tell me about it - when I first found him like that in the morning I was like, excuse me but wtf do you think you are doing, sir, because I was reliably informed that you would stay where I put you for ages yet not all babies will do it of course, but definitely not something you want to find out the hard way if yours can! I would probably say you could maybe fold some blankets along the other three edges to make a nice soft landing pad that’s maybe at the 3cm level, and then your LO would have to keep wriggling off THAT to hit the floor, and it’s very unlikely they’d make it that far before you woke up to feed them.

The cream we use is called Metanium, and it’s great (the yellow one is the antiseptic rash cream, the white one is just preventative barrier cream). Sudocrem is another one that’s very popular. I think any own brand antiseptic cream that’s suitable for open wounds would be fine though (that’s basically what nappy rash is if it’s bad, it looks like a steam burn). Fortunately we’ve only had it after his vaccinations, because the rotavirus one makes their poo quite caustic, so it’s not been a regular occurrence at all, but like I say, it’s awful when you open their nappy and see their poor bottom all red and sore - I debated getting some because cloth babies are supposed to hardly get it, but I was so glad I did, because I would not have wanted to have to put a nappy back on him knowing as soon as he peed it would be going on his sores. Make sure you use a liner or even a disposable whilst the cream is on though, as some creams affect the absorbency of cloth (coconut oil does not, which is why it’s recommended as a barrier cream). We used disposables for the first week until his stump dropped off and the meconium was gone, so we still had most of the pack left, so when he had a rash we just used them until the end of the day and switched back to cloth the next morning. A lot of companies will give you a free trial pack of disposables, so if you can gather a couple, you might find them useful for those times!

 

[snjeri]

@oppmuntre Thanks, the soft blanket is a good idea! I am hoping the wool covers can be used with the stump, but when I am home in the beginning, I am planning on having lots of diaper free time or just a loose flat on the baby, hoping to catch the meconium that way But def worth having at least one pack of disposables just in case.

 

[jd4christ]

@gaiealiyly We were on a budget and had unplanned twins. They’re 6 months old now and there are so many things I didn’t need.

The BEST purchases so far were $15ish fisher price bouncer chairs. They live in those.

IKEA high chairs- I like them better than the $150 one we were handed down

Don’t get the momaroo. I’ve never met a baby that actually liked it.

We got EVERYTHING second hand and are reselling most of it. When budgeting it seems to make sense to buy gradually along the way but we actually use more of the stuff I bought after they were here. You never really know what they’re going to like.

 

[coloredearth]

@gaiealiyly I tried to see if this was on any of the comments, but you can rent a Snoo, if a Snoo is what you want. If a Snoo isn’t in the stars, all you have to do is trust safe sleep and sleep train. Swaddle as long as you can. We use a $15 sound machine off amazon and it puts my guy right to sleep. You can also just buy snoo swaddles now. Otherwise marketplace like has been said. Letgo. Secondhand from trusted sources. Where are you located? It’ll help a ton to get better resources.