Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 47 total)
  • SingletrackParentWorld – Baby gear..
  • Lazgoat
    Free Member

    We are due our first baby in mid January and as first timers I thought I’d ask the STW parents where to source good quality used gear and any useful forums?

    We’ve already got most things as hand-me-downs but are looking for a decent pushchair. We’ve kicked the tyres of a few different ones but have our sights on a Bugaboo Chameleon 3. Other than ebay and Gumtree are there any other places to check out? Also any key weaknesses to this pushchair if you have one?

    northernmatt
    Full Member

    NCT sales. So cheap it’s unreal.

    As an example we paid £500 for a buggy (Quinny something), went in the NCT sale a month or so after baby was born and there was the exact same one for £90, bit older but in excellent nick. Got loads of clothes for him from them as well.

    hatter
    Full Member

    Your local NCT will probably organise occasional ‘kiddie jumbles’ which tend to be a gold mine of nice kit.

    Good luck with the new arrival! They’re hard work at first but soon the personality shines through and from then they just get funnier.

    *Edit* beaten to it, great minds think alike.

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    LHS
    Free Member

    Gumtree and Ebay – don’t know where you live but we picked up a reconditioned Bugaboo Chameleon 3 for £450 from a lady in Greenwich. She advertises on gumtree. It was in great condition with all new fabrics.

    igm
    Full Member

    Also note that many “baby essentials” are anything but essential. For example I never used the pushchair with our second – started in a big wrap thing tied to my chest (there’ll be a proper name but it’s basically a big lightweight fleece blanket), then rucksack carrier then shoulders.

    See if you can get by without it to begin with. Apart from somewhere for them to sleep, a few clothes and a car seat that is.

    Relatives with typically be happy to buy nice clothes. Supermarket baby grows and vest are cheap, functional and washable for the other 95% of the time your child needs clothing. This changes as they start to cruise.

    Oh and I’d ask on here for a decent secondhand bike seat – just don’t ask what type you need or how young they can go into it. 😉

    johndoh
    Free Member

    or example I never used the pushchair with our second – started in a big wrap thing tied to my chest

    But you wouldn’t do that with your first would you? You have it for the second as you need hands free to deal with the older sibling.

    I certainly couldn’t see a point of struggling with a sling when it is dead easy to bung everything in the pushchair.

    Ohh, and +1 for NCT sales – we buy & sell from them regularly as well as my wife being on the committee / volunteering on sale days at our local event.

    davieg
    Free Member

    Looks like you are checking in the right places. We have offloaded a good few items via GumTree first, then ebay.

    I know of friends who have sold and picked up baby goods from “Jack and Jill” sales. Not sure how prevalent they are throughout the country, but worth a Google to find one local one to you.

    wilko1999
    Free Member

    Do you have friends/family with slightly older children? If so you will be inundated with clothes that no longer fit theirs. We barely had to buy any clothes for our 3.5 year old daughter as I have a 5 year old niece. And now we’ve barely had to buy anything for our 1 year old son as I have a 3 year old nephew.

    As mentioned above NCT sales are an absolute goldmine if you can find one, get there early as its a bit of a free-for-all when the doors open. In fact if you’re an NCT member you can get in before the doors open to joe public.

    Friends on facebook are always selling bundles of clothes too, keep an eye out on there and other social network sites

    Don’t get lured into buying impractical stuff coz you think its cool like what I did. eg I bought my daughter some awesome pink Chuck Taylors that turned out to be an absolute arse to get on and off, she wore them once, got them dirty and then never wore them again. £35 down the pan 🙂

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    Given a second go at it I’d go second-hand, honestly about a year ago, I was flush faced and full of pride leading my pregnant wife into Mothercare to buy ‘the essentials’ 2 hours later I emerged broken an a grand lighter – clothes are pennies in comparison to the rest of it.

    There’s the hundreds on a Pram you’ll use about twice.

    Then you’ll want a crib to sleep in, oh and another one for the living room, “do they come with mattresses?” “oh no” that’ll be another £100 because I’m not sleeping on a super deluxe memory foam thing and letting my baby sleep on plastic crap – yes they do indeed make memory foam for babies – it’s pointless, but you’ll buy it anyway.

    Then there’s the £100 Tommy Tippiee bottle making machine – if your not breast feeding you NEED one for those, honestly – best thing I ever bought – because if you follow current mid-wife guidelines for making up formula you’re looking at 45-60 min wait to make a bottle – that’s not happening at 3am.

    Oh and muslins, buy a LOT of those, take a guess at how many you think you need, double that than buy some more.

    igm
    Full Member

    Having used both, a sling was far less of a struggle than a pushchair.

    To be fair ours were both breastfed, the few bottles they had (and the older one refused to have bottles) were expressed, so we were carrying less junk about.

    Pieface
    Full Member

    Maclaren XLR.

    Can be used from birth and is good up to Toddler.

    Don’t bother with the Phil & Teds stuff, weighs a tonne.

    scuttler
    Full Member

    Trickiest bit with number-one is your Mrs occupies the high ground (regardless of her mental state) so you’re in a weak position when it comes to trying to make economical decisions. Good news is number 2 costs about 50p.

    Lazgoat
    Free Member

    We’ve already been given tons of gear, highchair, stroller, nappies, moses basket, baby grows, clothes, BabyBjorn, reuseable nappies and we’ve got the bedroom sorted.
    I fancy the baby wrap system and its also on the wants list.
    The plan is to breastfeed so hopefully we don’t have the expense and hassle of bottle systems…but who knows. Thanks for the tip P-Jay.

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    There are a lot of local facebook buy and sell pages too.

    eg: https://www.facebook.com/groups/149378155092861/?fref=ts as one example.

    edhornby
    Full Member

    moses baskets are a complete waste of time, they grow out of them so fast

    ikea cot, cheap and good

    if you get a bugaboo chameleon you just pop them in to sleep in the pushchair rather than a moses

    If you end up using formula (and lots of people do) don’t bother with a bottle steriliser just zap them in the microwave with a little dish of water next to them

    aldi nappies

    Yak
    Full Member

    If you’ve got a bjorn, don’t bother with any wrap things. The bjorn is great and supports the baby really well. V comfy for you too.

    Lazgoat
    Free Member

    edhornby, what does the dish of water beside the bottle do? Boil and steam them?

    Good thinking Yak.

    igm
    Full Member

    Yak – don’t get the local mothers started on the ergonomics of what Baby Bijorns do to babies hips. Suffice it to say the local vote was for wraps or slings the the babies sit in as opposed to being suspended from as per the BabyB.

    Minefield.

    wilko1999
    Free Member

    Bjorns are great and so easy to put on but they don’t last long. Especially if you have unusually large babies.

    yetidave
    Free Member

    We have a barnardos kids shop nearby, which has some quality stuff for crazy prices – oh and good luck in Jan!!

    Yak
    Full Member

    igm – hmmm, times change!

    Sui
    Free Member

    scuttler – Member
    Trickiest bit with number-one is your Mrs occupies the high ground (regardless of her mental state) so you’re in a weak position when it comes to trying to make economical decisions. Good news is number 2 costs about 50p.

    LOL so true..

    Burchy1
    Free Member

    NCT sales are good

    This man speaks sense –

    Also note that many “baby essentials” are anything but essential

    plus most people live close enough to a 24hr supermarket to go and buy the essential if actually needed anyway.

    Buy a pushchair that fits in the boot of your car without having to break it down into its component parts.

    IMHO a better way of carrying them (although this might be my hatred of pushchairs in general) is a sling. Good for Dad to feel a bit more part of it aswell.

    [EDIT] Anything that is on the essential list for your wife/partner is actually ESSENTIAL!

    tinybits
    Free Member

    All the above advice is good. We went out a lot (pubs / restaurants / friends) with #1 so used the pram type stroller a lot. Now I live in the country, the pushchair bit is almost completely useless!
    One thing I will say is, even though you (or your wife anyway) are going for the breast feeding, get a couple of ready mixed bottles with the pre packaged sterilised teats and bung em in a cupboard. With any luck, you’ll never need them but if you o, you’ll need them at 3:00am after 3 nights of no sleep when desperation hits. That’s not the time you’ll be wanting to go out and try to buy the bottle feeding kit! Trust me on this, it’s like a £5 insurance policy that every new parent should have.

    mucker
    Full Member

    I don’t know where you are based but north of the border as well as the nct thing there are the jack and Jill sales (google for dates and locations), we’ve used both and bought very few new items for mini mucker.

    thebunk
    Full Member

    Facebook groups seem to be the place mrsbunk picks up cheap stuff.

    Also, pushchairs are great. They sleep in pushchairs. You’ll want it to sleep.

    Good luck!

    igm
    Full Member

    One thing I will say is, even though you (or your wife anyway) are going for the breast feeding, get a couple of ready mixed bottles with the pre packaged sterilised teats and bung em in a cupboard. With any luck, you’ll never need them but if you o, you’ll need them at 3:00am after 3 nights of no sleep when desperation hits. That’s not the time you’ll be wanting to go out and try to buy the bottle feeding kit! Trust me on this, it’s like a £5 insurance policy that every new parent should have.

    My wife would disagree with you for exactly the same reason. By all means stash a couple of expressed measures in the freezer or the like, but we never had formula in the house and she fed them until they were toddlers.

    Her opinion is if you don’t have the easy option you won’t take it.

    wilko1999
    Free Member

    The other side of the ‘back-up’ bottle feeding scenario is that after a few months of solely having boob, your baby may not be even slightly interested in taking a bottle. Our first wouldn’t have a bottle, in fact offering it to her in the middle of the night resulted in an ever increasing crescendo of blood-curdling screams. And that was from me! She was even louder.

    Kryton57
    Full Member

    OP, we have a ton of Baby stuff packed up ready for an NCT sale in two weeks, including Quinny Buzz 4 with footmuff, basket, bag and extra large cover.

    Let me know if you interested in that, if you like send me a list of what you are looking for as we have about 6 boxes/bins bags full of stuff. Email in profile.

    igm
    Full Member

    Ahh wilko, I remember those nights well – expressed milk obviously.

    gravity-slave
    Free Member

    Here’s probably as good a place as any to buy/sell stuff! 😉

    Got loads of stuff to move on, email in profile and I’ll probably stick it all in classifieds soon!

    Sling was great (wrap type then buckle up job later and now rucksack) but pram is excellent for long days out, handing the baby over, portable shopping basket and taking turns or letting friends, Aunties, Grandparents have a push! I got too hot in the sling with a little thermo baby strapped to me! He’s 2 now and won’t get in the pram without a struggle, too many puddles to jump in!

    Selling all sorts like Uppa Baby Vista in black, great condition,
    Ergobaby carrier (ideal from 6 months) in Dad friendly black/grey and
    Maxi Cosi pebble car seat and base (rear facer good for first year). Email in profile or watch classifieds!

    tinybits
    Free Member

    My wife would disagree with you for exactly the same reason. By all means stash a couple of expressed measures in the freezer or the like, but we never had formula in the house and she fed them until they were toddlers.

    and thats great, but in the first few days you have no idea if you’re going to be able to breast feed or not. Afterwards you know it was OK, but not before.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    Keeping on the breastfeeding discussion – breast is great if you can and the child will but it is not always the case and I totally disagree with Her opinion is if you don’t have the easy option you won’t take it..

    We have twins and one took to breast without issue, the other simply would not, was losing weight and we were recommended to express into a bottle but it soon dried up and we ended up using formula from about 3 months on and off, almost entirely formula by 6 months.

    Yes I am sure if she had absolutely no options, she would have eventually have worked it out but she was in SCBU for a week due to low birth weight and 3 months later was still struggling to put it on so what do you do? Carry on in the assumption that not giving her an option was the best solution or try something else in the hope that she would start to put weight on?

    TimS
    Free Member

    Our 6 month old is clothed almost exclusively in secondhand stuff.

    We’ve got a lot of stuff from Freecycle and eBay. Our bugaboo pram is a Cameleon 2, which looks *very* similar to the 3 and was £200 on eBay.

    +1 for the muslins. We bought a couple of huge bags off eBay, and still needed more.

    Also, when you’re discussing what to take to the hospital *make sure YOU put it in the bag* and know what it all is. I had a few unpleasant moments digging around in the bag that my wife packed looking for something or other that she wanted, and I had no idea what I was looking for. If I’d have done the packing, I’d have found it much more easily.

    Good luck, it’s ace. 😀

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Sling >>> pushchair, for the first 6m.

    squirrelking
    Free Member

    Lansinoh lanolin cream for ravaged nipples. Use sparingly. Don’t get too upset when they look like they’re falling off, they’ll heal. Speak to Breast Feeding Network, midwives are all well and good but they were far better at sorting my missus out with a technique that worked for her albeit only after a few weeks of pain requiring subsequent healing time so get it done sooner rather than later. Also, if she really can’t do it she is NOT a failure. Yes, she will be a complete basket case for months afterwards as she readjusts to not having a parasitic growth playing with her hormones. It’ll pass, just keep a level head and diplomatically point out when she is acting crazy (use discretion here, afterwards is usually better).

    Use pram for living room.

    Cot-bed from gumtree – £15 (new mattress was ~£80).

    Expressing is a useful option if your missus loses it and decides she wants a life occasionally. We used Philips Avent Natural? (not compatible with the other system they have) but ended up feeding her using a sippy cup because she wouldn’t take to the rubber teats.

    “Tiger in the Tree” – learn it, know it. Sorts wind right out and gets them burping and farting like nobodys business. This will be a sanity saver after three hours trying to settle them.

    Dry pailing – do it. Rinse nappies thoroughly, wring them out and you’re sorted. Wet just leaves you with nappy soup which is a PITA and ends up causing more hassle. BTW don’t be surprised if your little ones wee soiled nappies smell like strong skunk, apparantly it’s a common thing but nobody talks about it (probably cause most are on disposables).

    F*ck Vtech. In the face. Kill it all. Kill it with fire.

    bland
    Full Member

    Breast feeding is potentially a nightmare in the making so be prepared for a distraught wife if teh baby wont latch on. We had this issue and my wife was so upset. However the hospital will have a breast feeding lady who will no doubt offer all the help you need and they will/should be able to lend you one of the professional dairy parlour machines if you have any issues so pursue that route before shelling out on one.

    Microwave steriliser is a must.

    Bottle makers….its not hard to make a bottle, you soon learn 4 scoups plus 90ml water left in fridge topped up with 30ml of boiling water is the perfect combination!

    bland
    Full Member

    Car boot sales can be great too, but you need to be there early. You will be up in good time to get there for 6, plus what else do you do at that time on a sunday morning!

    Lazgoat
    Free Member

    Awesome replies from you all.
    Dry pailing…Tiger in the tree… just brilliant.

    mark90
    Free Member

    We had a cheap no-name baby carrier for our first, hardly got used. For the second we tried a Baby Bjorn* (used off ebay). This was great for short trips such as talking eldest on school run etc. But we didn’t use it for extended periods.

    * yes know all bout the hips position thing. Which might be more relevant for the ‘baby wearing’ brigade who wear baby all day.

    At around 9/10 months we found the Baby Bjorn wasn’t cutting it so after trialing* one we got a Manduca (used of ebay again, which is where the Baby Bjorn will go). This wasn’t so good for newborn but is much better at this age and onwards up to toddler. Can be worn front or back and is easily packable so you take it along with you in a bag etc in case required.

    * Check out to see if you have a local sling/carrier lending library/group. Often on facebook.

    Also have a more structured LittleLife backpac carrier (from first child) which is a big lump for short trips and ‘just having with you’, but is great for those longer family walks, especially as they get bigger/heavier.

    Buggy wise we found something rubust with decent size pneumatic wheels (original Mutsy 4 rider), not little castors like some, worked best for us. Bit cumbersome around town, but better for ‘outdoor’ use. Missus keeps talking about getting a cheap lightweight stroller to compliment it, but she didn’t get round to it with the first and so far not with the second (11m) either.

    While it might not be current advised best practice both of ours had bottles made up as:

    Cooled boiled water into sterilised bottles.
    Bottles left at room temp for up to 24 hrs.
    Formula added to bottle.
    Used within 15-20 mins.

    Neither suffered any ill effects / upset tummies, and giving them room temp bottles makes it so much easier when you are out and about.

    This was after a period of very difficult breast/expressed bottle feeding for both.

    As mentioned above, there are plenty of bargins to be had second hand. Try not to get sucked into the must buy the latest new stuff for little darling. Let some other sucker take the depreciation hit then recoup most/all of your money when you sell it on afterwards.

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