Hello, I'm here from batrachian's journal and I hope this comment is not too long! My wife and I have an eleven month old so this is all stuff I've spent a lot of time thinking about recently. XD
We bought nearly everything secondhand except for the carseat/stroller combination and did not regret any choice. In a lot of cities there are baby/child consignment sales in the spring and fall, and often these have better prices than the regular consignment stores, especially if you pay attention to the sale days. I think most of ours might just be local but I know Just Between Friends is in lots of places so if you're looking for a place to start googling that's a good one.
The thing it took us the longest to reach parity on was burp cloths, just because if there's not one right there it doesn't matter how many you have stacked up elsewhere. Luckily they're cheap secondhand and eventually I had stacks next to every piece of furniture where my wife was likely to nurse her, as well as in the car and both diaper bags and... you get the idea. If you're cloth diapering, it's also good to have more diapers/inserts than you think you'll need, just in case.
It's good to have a few different sizes of onesie ready, too - we didn't think the size difference between "newborn" and "0-3" was that large until were put her in a 0-3 onesie in the hospital and it seemed huge, but we know people whose newborns went straight into 0-3 so it's hard to predict.
Check out your regular thrift stores ahead of time and you'll easily get a sense of which has the best pricing on baby clothes. For us, it's Value Village. Between them and Once Upon a Child's sale rack, we never have to spend more than $1 on a onesie.
Once Upon a Child is a chain like Plato's Closet for used kids stuff. Their prices are not usually the best but their selection is very reliable for a used store. We have a couple of other used/consignment kids shops in town, and before the baby was born we went around and noted which ones were best for which things. We bought the crib on Craigslist, just made sure the one we were buying listed the brand and so we could check for safety.
There are also several local FB groups for selling baby/kids stuff and one for 'mamas helping mamas' where people sometimes offer things for free. My wife is really into babywearing and is in a group for 2ndhand carriers, too. If you want to wear the baby, make sure you actually try on a number of carriers because which is the most comfortable brand varies depending on body type. We're much happier each having our own carrier because everything doesn't have to be re-adjusted every time. Something like an Ergo or a Mei Tai is good for lots of walking around, but a ring sling is great for quick errands. Some people find ring slings very comfy and wear them all the time, though. Something like a Moby wrap is nice with a very young baby, but Cori outgrew it by about four months. It seems like a lot depends on your preference and the baby's, so you might want to wait, or at least wait on investing in a pricey one, until your child is in a position to express an opinion.
As far as toys and equipment goes, we've mostly been very reactive about what we buy, because one set of parents will swear by a swing and another by a playard or whatnot, so for example we actually took the baby to consignment stores when she was about a month and tried out swings until we found one she was happy in. We'd rather spend the time looking for what makes her happy when we need it than buying a lot of things in advance. My wife takes her to play groups and things where she gets to play with lots of toys, and we use that to gauge her interest in different things before we buy them. In our case, the large sideways-swinging swing was the only style she liked, and a play mat with dangling chiming toys was the best way to keep her happy before she started crawling, but I feel like YMMV.
The two things that we didn't see recommended anywhere but we loved once we found them were baby legwarmers (the largest brand name is 'baby legs' but I've seen non-brand name ones secondhand) which are great because you can keep the baby's legs covered but still be able to change the diaper, and "sock ons" which were the reason we didn't lose a single baby sock.
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Date: 2015-03-17 06:51 am (UTC)We bought nearly everything secondhand except for the carseat/stroller combination and did not regret any choice. In a lot of cities there are baby/child consignment sales in the spring and fall, and often these have better prices than the regular consignment stores, especially if you pay attention to the sale days. I think most of ours might just be local but I know Just Between Friends is in lots of places so if you're looking for a place to start googling that's a good one.
The thing it took us the longest to reach parity on was burp cloths, just because if there's not one right there it doesn't matter how many you have stacked up elsewhere. Luckily they're cheap secondhand and eventually I had stacks next to every piece of furniture where my wife was likely to nurse her, as well as in the car and both diaper bags and... you get the idea. If you're cloth diapering, it's also good to have more diapers/inserts than you think you'll need, just in case.
It's good to have a few different sizes of onesie ready, too - we didn't think the size difference between "newborn" and "0-3" was that large until were put her in a 0-3 onesie in the hospital and it seemed huge, but we know people whose newborns went straight into 0-3 so it's hard to predict.
Check out your regular thrift stores ahead of time and you'll easily get a sense of which has the best pricing on baby clothes. For us, it's Value Village. Between them and Once Upon a Child's sale rack, we never have to spend more than $1 on a onesie.
Once Upon a Child is a chain like Plato's Closet for used kids stuff. Their prices are not usually the best but their selection is very reliable for a used store. We have a couple of other used/consignment kids shops in town, and before the baby was born we went around and noted which ones were best for which things. We bought the crib on Craigslist, just made sure the one we were buying listed the brand and so we could check for safety.
There are also several local FB groups for selling baby/kids stuff and one for 'mamas helping mamas' where people sometimes offer things for free. My wife is really into babywearing and is in a group for 2ndhand carriers, too. If you want to wear the baby, make sure you actually try on a number of carriers because which is the most comfortable brand varies depending on body type. We're much happier each having our own carrier because everything doesn't have to be re-adjusted every time. Something like an Ergo or a Mei Tai is good for lots of walking around, but a ring sling is great for quick errands. Some people find ring slings very comfy and wear them all the time, though. Something like a Moby wrap is nice with a very young baby, but Cori outgrew it by about four months. It seems like a lot depends on your preference and the baby's, so you might want to wait, or at least wait on investing in a pricey one, until your child is in a position to express an opinion.
As far as toys and equipment goes, we've mostly been very reactive about what we buy, because one set of parents will swear by a swing and another by a playard or whatnot, so for example we actually took the baby to consignment stores when she was about a month and tried out swings until we found one she was happy in. We'd rather spend the time looking for what makes her happy when we need it than buying a lot of things in advance. My wife takes her to play groups and things where she gets to play with lots of toys, and we use that to gauge her interest in different things before we buy them. In our case, the large sideways-swinging swing was the only style she liked, and a play mat with dangling chiming toys was the best way to keep her happy before she started crawling, but I feel like YMMV.
The two things that we didn't see recommended anywhere but we loved once we found them were baby legwarmers (the largest brand name is 'baby legs' but I've seen non-brand name ones secondhand) which are great because you can keep the baby's legs covered but still be able to change the diaper, and "sock ons" which were the reason we didn't lose a single baby sock.