Building a list of what to buy for first

I loved my sling, I found that really useful and still use it now. Especially great for those times when you don't really want or need to get the stroller out.

I also really liked our hammock, but probably not a necessity, I borrowed mine.

Playgyms are great. I have one that plays music when he hits the toys and converts to tummy time which is really cool - but anyone works!

Soft rattles are really good first toys

For the standard things I looked at the list from baby factory etc and got that stuff.

One thing we didn't use much were the bath seat things. We used them sometimes but didn't really need them.

We use our 6mths+ bath seat, but we never really used the new born bath support (like a ramp).
Love love love all-in-ones (full body with feet, s.h. is ok they aren't worn out after one baby).
Elfwear merino onesies (button under crotch from babystar, so much softer than the ones from B.F.)
Exersauces are fantastic (4mths +), but you may as well get s.h.
We ended up with way too much cot bedding. And hundreds of hand knitted botties he never wore (they didn't stay on him at all little squiggle bum).   In general we ended up with way too many 0000 clothes.

Lil_Nic9 wrote: Don't worry about 'clothes' like outfits, really they are just too fiddly and generally end up ruined, wait until they're a bit older...

Sooooo agree with this. Changing a floppy newborn into cutesy outfits is too fiddly and since they sleep so much would u wanna sleep in jeans etc?

Babies don't need loads of toys. I think a playgym/playmat type one with toys overhead and a couple of basic things that they can chew on or hold is enough until they start wanting to move around a bit more.

Ooh, if you can check out if your Plunket has a toy library they are fantastic for toys and you save heaps of $$.

Don't "stock up" on loads of creams, shampoos and wipes. Every baby has a different skin type and you may end up stocking up on a whole lot of stuff you will never use. As far as bum creams go we havent even used up the sample of benpanthen I got in my bounty pack as we haven't needed it. We are still on our first bottle of shampoo and my boy is 3. I don't use it unless I need to. And lots of babies react badly to the chemicals in the wipes even with the sensitive ones.

Play gym is definately fantastic.

Old school cloth nappies are great for everything. Also muslin wraps, I've used them for so much.

Definately agree with kebakat re; creams and and lotions etc. We don't use anything on our boy at the moment, but I have a huge pile of samples from bounty packs etc

Some sort of sling or wrap or something is really great too, being able to be handsfree while still holding bubba.

Definately AIO and body suits. I can't get enough of them.

Booties are a waste, we got given heaps of knitted booties that last 2 sec before falling off, such a pain.

Bibs, bibs and more bibs. Some days we would go through 7 or 8 bibs with dribbles and vomit.

Our bouncer was really great in the early days too.

 

Hmm, thats all I can think of right now.

 

Everyone is different with what they need. For example: We haven't needed a baby monitor at all and don't own one whereas some people feel the sound and movement monitors are a must. My sister uses muslin cloths all the time but we hardly use ours. So you may find in asking you get a whole lot of different answers - hopefully you can pick and choose what sits well with you guys.

Anyway - here are our essentials:

Totally agree with the old flat cloth nappies! We use them for EVERYTHING (well except as nappies lol)

We use modern cloth nappies and cut up chux cloths as wipes (with water).

A baby carrier/wrap is awesome.

Big merino wrap for swaddling.

Our merino sleeping bag is also awesome.

AIO clothes are great!

I also liked having a capsule with a base.


What we haven't needed:

A bassinet or hammock (we just put DS straight into the cot).

We didn't need to buy toys or blankets - we got given them.

A baby monitor

And I wouldn't buy a mobile again - I'd just go with white noise. Mobiles are so loud and annoying! Well, our one is anyway.

That's all I can think of for now. HTH

We have a sound and movement monitor but never use the movement part because we always forget to turn it off when we get her up so off goes the alarm when I am all comfy and feeding!

Our dd hates the music on the mobile but likes it with the noise off...

Oh, and one thing we needed and had completely forgot about was getting those little blue scented plastic bags for dirty nappies.

I have never used my lanisoh and spent $$ on the biggest tube!

I agree with buying a couple of sizes up, I got all Lily's clothes for NB, 0-3, 3-6 and a few 6-9. We've out grown NB and 0-3. Also some sizing is really weird, like 0-3 might be huge by one brand and tiny in the next.

I've still bought some cute stuff for her though but I have all the basic stuff that was a must.