The last instalment – for now – on baby stuff.
Baby bathing products. Yes, you need to bathe your baby. Eau de fromage can become quite pungent after a while. You have to be careful about the umbilical cord, but once that’s off, you are free to bath.
When you look at your bath and then your baby, you see there is a distinct disparity in sizes. For the first few weeks we actually used the sink! When the time comes to upgrade to the actual bath, there are some great bath seats around, some that swivel as your babe grows, and you can of course let them splash around pure and simples on their backs. Careful though – water in the ear can cause ear infections.
Bébé FF LOVES the bath now. Usually he demonstrates his excitement with a little piddle as his feet touch the water. It wasn’t always like this. The journey to loving bath time took a while – I remember his first bath with Auntie Em and Mary, and there was a lot of screaming. And a few wees and maybe a trickle of poo. The first months were made up of a cacophony of screams (before, during and post bath) not to mention howling when it came to being dressed.
You may have received hundreds of samples of bath products for your baby, all claiming to make your babe’s super soft skin….softer. Does it need to be softer?
Nope. It turns out that – in our experience at least – you do not need the super-gentle-made-of-fluffy-marshmallows-and-clouds cream, in fact, you don’t need much at all. Especially if your baby has sensitive skin, despite what the marketing tells you. It is best to keep it very simple. (Every baby is different so do see your GP if you have skin concerns, it could be allergy related (washing detergent, moisturiser, bath products, your perfume, the air…) and lots of babies have baby eczema which will clear up. We also had cradle cap (dentinox seems to be the universal winner on that). We received lots of mixed advice from the health visitors and the doctors – don’t bathe him, bathe him every day, jump up and down whilst you apply five layers of cream…etc.)
We have tried lots of lovely stuff, including Mummy & Me, Oilatum and Neal’s Yard, coconut oil (yum) and currently use Aveeno and QV emollients.
The post-bath snuggles though are wonderful. And baby bath towels with the little hood are the BEST. The more soft and snuggly the better.
Then on to baby clothes, because these are kind of critical and also make up a large volume of the “stuff”. You might assume clothes will be bargainous. After all, they use significantly less material. Right? Wrong. Despite the fact bebe is about 1/6th the size of a normal human being, his clothes are only about 1/2 of the price. Sometimes the same price. Ok slight exaggeration but don’t tell Mr FF….
Bebe won’t like his clothes. He doesn’t want his head shoved through a small hole ever again. Whoever thought to put poppers on the back of newborn clothes clearly has never tried to dress a screaming newborn. Think practical. What is the easiest thing to dress your baby in? I highly recommend zip-up items for the first few months. If not for your sanity, for the hubs. (hint: Don’t put them off dressing the babes, it adds to the general reluctance to change nappies…)
You will also quickly discover that those baby clothes will usually get approximately two wears. Yep, two goes on the item. And n.b. that does not mean two full days’ wear. That means two wears. It could quite literally be on and off in the space of a poo. And, to be fair, the second wear presupposes you know how to fill and activate the washing machine – with one hand – and you have some pretty effective stain remover. This can be bitterly disappointing and your favourite gift item, the little Petit Bateau onesie or the Bonpoint suit will be ruined… I digress.
Last there’s the play equipment. This becomes critical after a few weeks of intense cuddling. Your baby can barely see beyond a black and white cloud of blur at this point. But bien sur he needs a state of the art “gym” including tummy time, scrunkle noises, flying objects, bells, whistles, hooters and insanely bright and clashing colours EVERYWHERE. One similarity with adult life : when he comes out of the gym he is exhausted. When I say “Bebe FF had a great session in the gym and he’s zonked when he comes out” it’s brilliant – you can see people momentarily believing he’s actually been to the gym. Yes, he was totally nailing the cross trainer…
He also needs books and cuddly toys so that he can scream every time you place one close to him. Sometimes he will dribble or even vomit on them. Brillo. He needs things to chew on to help those teef push through. N.b. your finger will always be first choice and you won’t loose that in the bottom of your interminable baby bag (I think I need to post separately about those…!)
All these things take up loads of space in your previously sparsely* inhabited living space and will, naturally, require special “baby” or “nursery” furniture for storage. Bam. Another wad of cash disappears.
So what’s the message here? Three posts about baby stuff. Likely more to follow. I haven’t even mentioned nappies, wipes, nappy bins and bags, mussies and milk!
Having a baby actually does cost a fortune, and takes up all the space in the house. But that’s what a MasterCard is for. You can’t put a price on your baby’s happiness or safety. And some of the baby stuff is L’AMAZEBALLS.
New Parents:
If you’re about to embark on this journey of joy and you aren’t made of money, don’t panic. There are LOADS of ways to get what you want without going bankrupt.
I will try to include tips as I go throughout this blog, but to begin with, a few obvious ones:
- check out nearly new sales around your area, the NCT organise plenty – you can often get designer attire for primarni prices. I’ve yet to get to one but Momma F loves a nearly new. N.B. You have to get there early.
- Explore Schpock and eBay for equipment that is new or in very good condition. There are also lots of Facebook pages for local parents selling and looking for goodies.
- When it comes to nappies and wipes, be sure to test out samples – if you sign up to sites like this one you will get bits and bobs through the post or vouchers to use in stores: http://free.emmasdiary.co.uk.
- Sign up to Mothercare to get 10% off initial purchases.
- Amazon Prime. Nuff said.
- Before you buy your travel system check the auction / second hand sites to see how many are selling and why – useful way to gauge how long they lasted, how much they were used, and why they are being sold!! If you see someone with a pram shopping for prams… consider asking them why. But don’t act like a stalker.
- If you are looking the obvious choices are Bugaboo, Joolz, Stokke, Uppababy, MaxiCosi, Cossatto and we went with Venicci. We also just got the amazing babyzen Yoyo 6+ – more on that later.
*anyone that knows me will appreciate the use of “sparse” is possibly slightly misleading.
Be My Bébé 