Dad guide to buying baby stuff
Hi there. This is an email-to-a-friend turned into a blog post for posterity. I added affiliate links to Amazon (an occasional click pays for website expenses), but in most cases you can find all of this baby stuff for much cheaper at a second-hand store. Except for diapers, of course. A few of my friends are in the child planning phase or are going through their first pregnancy. It’s an exciting and scary time, and there are so many things to buy - some are worth it, some aren’t. And as a dad whose daughter passed a six month milestone a few months back - here’s what worked for me and what didn’t, what I thought was worth spending the money on and what was a bit of a scam. Each baby’s an individual though, so your mileage may and will vary. In the first 6 months, I think babies are as expensive as you let them, given that they’re healthy of course. After footing the hospital bills, and a few upfront purchases, the only consistent expenses were diapers, wet wipes, and occasional “oh, I should get this” purchases. While I’m generally not a fan of Amazon’s business model, having same day/next day delivery was a lifesaver, especially in the earlier months. That being said, we weren’t particularly self-restrictive - but it felt like the first 6 months didn’t really break the bank. So the baby needs clothes to wear, and within the first six months it’s mostly lots of onesies. Here’s the challenge - babies grow fast, and at inconsistent speeds. Baby clothes are sized by age, but the older they get, the less sizes line up with their age. Your six month old could be wearing a 9-12 month outfit, or even a 0-3 month one if they’re tiny. Because of that, buying lots of clothes in advance is a bit of a waste of money. And having too many outfits for each “size” is also not a great idea, since babies grow in bursts, and sometimes they can just choose to grow an inch in a few weeks and skip a size. Naturally this makes second-hand clothes a very appealing option. If you can get hand-me-downs - just take them all, it really helps. Pass them on to the next child when done. We lucked out with neighbors having a kiddo two years older than ours, and we got boxes and boxes of clothes. Ask around at work and in your third places - baby clothes don’t really have resale value and just take up space in a closet, most folks are happy to donate. If you don’t have a community to draw from - that’s not a huge deal either, because baby second-hand clothes are cheap. I mean, really cheap. San Diego isn’t known for its low prices, but a single outfit costs between $1 and $5. Yeah, fancier outfits can be more expensive and we’d splurge all of $10 for a nice dress to take our daughter to a formal event like a wedding. New baby clothes are overpriced for what they are - an outfit a baby will wear anywhere between 2 and 20 times, and you’d be shelling out $30 on average. Also, most people in your life will give you baby outfits. You’ll have more outfits than you need, and you might even have to cycle through multiple outfits a day for a photoshoot because the gift outfits are getting really tight and might not fit tomorrow. I’m sure this will change as she gets older, but between hand-me-downs and second-hand stores we probably haven’t spent more than $50. You need onesies, a couple of swaddles, maybe some sleep sacks as the kiddo gets older. Ours didn’t care for swaddles or sleep sacks after the two month mark, but some babies sleep in sacks for years. You also need a bunch of large muslin cloths (in addition to a few sheets you will inevitably steal from the hospital), which are a lifesaver for cleaning up, swaddling, and temperature regulation, some burp cloths for a quick cleanup, and a few bibs for when the baby begins to try solid foods (which is right around the 6 month mark). Okay, there’s lots of crazy expensive and nice bassinets out there. I mean there’s SNOO you can buy for $1,700, which is smart enough to soothe your baby to sleep and probably get you a cup of coffee ready in the morning. We ended up with a cheap ($100) bassinet from Amazon , and glad we didn’t splurge. Our little one really didn’t like sleeping by herself, and eventually she just moved to our bed. Nights got better, and the bassinet didn’t get much use. Maybe an ultra-smart bassinet could’ve soothed my baby to sleep, but we won’t find that out now. Bassinets are nice in theory because you can have them right by the bed, which we did - and it would’ve been nice, if our baby didn’t want to be held all the time. Having us nearby wasn’t enough. Some folks skip the bassinet and go straight for the crib, which is an option with more longevity to it. Just like with the bassinets, there are lots of really expensive strollers out there. We went with a Chicco Bravo 3-in-1 travel system , and it’s perfectly functional. You get a car seat, you get a stroller, and you can also have a car seat clipped into the stroller. We bought this new, mostly due to safety and recall concerns around used car seats. I think some second-hand shops actually certify their resold seats, but we just went with a new one. Chicco Bravo handles a bit worse than more expensive brands like Nuna (especially if you have bad sidewalks), but it didn’t feel like a major enough difference to justify paying double or triple the price. There’s also the carriers, and personally I prefer to carry my baby in a carrier over a stroller, while my wife’s the opposite. There’s the single long piece of cloth you can wrap around yourself or firm carriers like Baby Bjorn , and many options in between. We have a bunch, some bought and some handed down, and both my wife and I and our daughter as she grows have different preferences for which carrier works best. It’s nice to have a mix. You don’t want to cheap out on diapers. Cheap diapers will cause blowouts, and it’s as bad as it sounds. Good diapers hold the poo in very well - we found Pampers to be good enough. I tried out 5-6 different brands, and some of them fit better than others - babies have different body shapes, so it might be worth shopping around mid range diapers. Cloth diapers are a thing, and while before having a baby I thought I’d be all cool and Earth conscious, realizing how much babies pee and poo and how hard is that stuff to clean made me reconsider that position. We could barely do our own laundry, traditional diapers are good, apparently. You also need wet wipes to clean the kiddo’s booty. I tried a whole bunch, and nothing beats the water wipes , even though they’re more expensive. They clean better than most and don’t have any scent, which I think is nice. You should also get an inexpensive diaper pail - those things are lifesavers, believe it or not - baby poo smells. Babycams are real nice for watching your baby when they sleep, or doing some chores throughout the house when they play by themselves. Infant Optics has been the workhorse of our household: no WiFi, no Internet connection, just a reliable camera with a screen you can take with you. Works 100% of the time, no fiddling required. Lots of toys are given as gifts, and pass-me-downs from friends, colleagues, or neighbors are great here too. Your kid will have preferences for specific toys, these preferences will change over time. You don’t really need that many, and it takes kids a while to start playing with things anyway. Just go with the flow here, don’t overplan. A few baby books, something to make noise, something with light and movement. Once the little one starts teething (anywhere between 3 to 9 months I think), lots and lots of different teethers. There are no wrong options here. A small play gym can go a long way too, our daughter used it a lot and still does. We bought a little baby bathtub , but most of the time we just bring our kiddo with us in the shower. It’s faster and easier. You need some baby-friendly soap, shampoo and something to scrub the baby with. But it’s not urgent, you don’t really clean newborns that often - their skin is too sensitive for that. If the baby has a cradle cap, some coconut oil and a scrubber do wonders, but it does take weeks to get off the nasty skin flakes. Something I wouldn’t have known about, here are the three things that are must buy: And you get them used to these three tools immediately, especially the booger sucker, so that they don’t fight it when they’re sick. Play with these sometimes. Eh, this really depends on breastfeeding vs bottle feeding. If you’re on formula, the hospital will send you home with a small supply of formula (or a very large supply if you’re nice to the nurses). Bottles are a complicated topic too, babies like different bottle shapes during different cycles of the moon. I would just get a couple of different ones, they don’t have to be fancy in case the baby rejects them. You don’t really need to be overprepared in advance here, collect bottles as you go. Oh, and we got this bottle washer from a friend, and I think it was useless. You can wash and sanitize bottles in the dishwasher, with all the other dishes. It’s fine. Feeding’s a really complicated topic, and is even more unique to the baby than the rest of the topics here. Good luck. Oh - you do probably want a nursing pillow or something like that. It’s helpful for positioning the baby for lots of activities, from eating a boob to play time. Okay, so far I’ve generally been advocating for utmost frugality, but here’s something that I think is worth splurging for: baby-friendly gym membership. There are “mommy and me” classes all around, which my wife took extensively while on maternity leave - it’s a great place to stay in shape, build community, and just take a bit of a breather: it’s one public place where you don’t feel bad if your child’s having a meltdown for whatever reason. Totally worth it. I’m about to take a second part of my paternity leave, and I’m looking into “daddy and me” classes - I think these are a great use of money if one of the parents isn’t working. Helps with sanity. Naturally, all of this is my personal take. My little one might love her cheap high chair now, but yours might only eat from a gold spoon. But I also think there’s a whole industry out there designed to make you feel like you’re doing something wrong if you’re not shelling out for the most expensive thing for your child - and it’s been a constant battle for my family to figure out where we stand. Nail sander , because cutting baby nails is impossible. You gotta sand them down. Gunk picker , because there’s always random gunk in the nose, ears, and other hard to reach places. Booger sucker , because the child will eventually get sick and boogers need to be removed.
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