by Liz | Chaos Hacks
I’m not sure about everyone else, but I’ve always found the registry process to be somewhat daunting. I feel incredibly self-conscious about the whole thing and am loath to “ask” for gifts. As a consumer, I completely appreciate them and love buying gifts for people that I know they want or will use. It’s mostly just my silly personal hangup..but we’ve all got those…right?
On the plus side…registering for baby things has been really fun. Who doesn’t like shopping for their baby-to-be? We finally feel like we’ve made some progress in getting our baby room in order and are feeling like we’re “ready”. Whatever that means!
One thing I’ve found though, is that registries can be deceiving. Typically, you find a store or group of stores that you like and you set up a registry. In theory, you’d expect these stores to have good quality products at fairly competitive prices. Between the usual “baby stores”, the prices seem to be reasonably on par with one another. However, I recently did a little comparison shopping for one or two items we still need and was amazed with what I found. Amazon.com had a few of the big-ticket items at over $100 less than the baby stores. That’s a BIG difference when you’re scrimping for pennies and worried about maternity leave.
Definitely take the time to comparison shop and maybe even consider the Baby Bargain’s book I mentioned in a previous post. Those pennies add up!
by Liz | All Things Kids, Chaos Hacks
One of the many challenges with our small cottage is…what gear to buy and what gear to forgo. Fortunately, we have some friends who had their first child while in New York city so had some great advise. Here are a few things we’re contemplating for the near future:
- Forget the highchair! We really don’t have a dining room table or any place to store, let alone utilize a highchair. For the first few months, we obviously won’t need one. For now, we’re likely going to skip the highchair and as a workaround, rely on a bumbo baby seat with tray, or a portable highchair. If we can contain the mess, we might stand a chance with one or both of these!
- Xtreme organization: As I’ve mentioned a few dozen times, we have tiny closets. Before baby arrives, we invested in a few (relatively inexpensive) closet organizers. Having a few extra shelves can make a world of difference. Someone also suggested size tags for baby clothes to help you stay up to date on which size to pull out next and which outfits can be packed away. We’ll be using our attic space and plastic bins to cycle through the various stages of baby-gear so we don’t have too much clutter at one time, especially with items we won’t need right away.
- Consult the experts: There are lots of books and sites out there to help you make informed decisions about baby products. This is one book someone mentioned to me that I found particularly helpful: Baby Bargains. Definitely get the most up to date version for the best info, but regardless…there are some great tips in here for finding the right product for you.
- Portable, portable, portable: Many types of gear come in portable or travel-type options. These are great for people with small space as they can be compressed or folded and stuck under a bed/crib or in the back of a closet for when they’re needed. There’s no need for the full-sized version if you can make-do with the portable version. A few ideas are: snap & go strollers to give you some ease of use with the infant car seat. This is helpful and economical until you need a full-sized stroller. There are also portable highchairs as mentioned above, portable cribs/pack n’ play options, bassinets and co-sleepers and much much more.
- Borrow what you can: We are fortunate in that many of our friends have had babies recently so they have some of the gear we’ve been looking at. Rather than purchase our own, we plan to borrow whatever is up for grabs. This saves us on storage space before we need the items, and lets us give the items back when we’ve outgrown them!
by Liz | All Things Kids, Chaos Hacks
Our nursery is rather short on space, as is the rest of our little cottage. It’s approximately 9 feet by 9 feet, but one wall is almost entirely taken up by a closet and our stacked washer/dryer. Another wall has a door in one corner, so cramming the needed furniture and trappings has been difficult to say the least.
Last weekend I reorganized the closet so we could at least accommodate our laundry hamper, vacuum, linen closet, my non-maternity clothes AND…a teeny bit of space for our baby’s needs. Oh and the same closet also houses our water heater…did I mention we’re low on space?
Once we managed to remove the remains of our guest room furniture from the space, we could finally get a sense of how the nursery will be set up. Here are a few snapshots of what we have so far, though they have yet to find their proper places. We’re going to live with the current arrangement a while to be sure we’re content with it.
The crib and dresser came from a local store that was having a big sale (40% off!) a few months ago. This allowed us to get higher quality pieces but at more reasonable prices. Needless to say, we were very excited about this! We went with a white/antique finish so it’ll complement any color we end up with. The crib also converts to a toddler bed and later to a full-sized bed. If we eventually move to a larger house, this will be ideal for either child or guest room.
We found the rug at a Pottery Barn outlet. For some reason that is completely imperceptible to us, this rug was deemed a “second” and thus relegated to the outlet shelves. We were fortunate enough to find it (actually, my husband spotted it first) so we snatched it up. The one complication is…we have to paint the room. Even though we’re having a girl, we were happy to leave the room the dusky shade of blue it currently is. Once we brought the rug home, my husband took one look and said…”I’m painting it.” As he chose the rug, who am I to argue!?
Our last find was the glider. We don’t have room for one of the larger and more padded models, so if we even purchased a glider…we knew it had to be compact. We finally found a smaller, sleeker model on a discount site and were thrilled when we got it. It’s just the right size and still incredibly comfortable. The only disappointment was the color. It’s a bit dark for our color choices. For now, I threw a blanket over it and in time I can always recover it (when I find the time…and energy, of course).
Now the search is on for bedding and other necessary bits of organization that will complete the room. More to come on those as time goes on!
by Liz | Chaos Hacks
There is one thing for sure…being pregnant exposes you to a wealth of information that is both useful and stressful. Through no one’s fault but my own, I’ve come across a diverse collection of informational, conversational and sensational (not necessarily in a good way) sources. Here are a few I’ve found useful…
www.babycenter.com
This is probably one of the most well-known sites in my experience and contains a ton of information. You can sign up for weekly update emails, log-in to see your progress and get access to lots of useful insights from other parents. One of things I like the most is that the site gives a good snapshot of what you’re going through, has articles on almost any topic you might think of…but the info is typically concise and free of embellishment. Many other sites sometimes give “too much” information and can really scare you into thinking about all the maybes and what ifs. Being a mom is overwhelming enough, I really don’t want to add to my stress level!
Baby Center also has a free iPhone app with daily updates that include informational snippets and even videos about the various stages of pregnancy. Very useful for a mom-to-be who is on the go!
WhattoExpect.com
Another well-known site (as well as a very popular book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”), however I don’t like the organization or useability. While this might seem trivial, when you’re in a rush or searching for something specific…this can be very frustrating. I also don’t tend to follow celebrity gossip and news so when a site caters to that realm of information, I tend to shy away. I get quite a few emails from them on a variety of topics and I find these to be pretty useful. The emails are geared toward your stage of pregnancy and address a whole host of topics that may or may not be of interest. I get quite a few emails, but the beauty of it is…I can just delete the ones I don’t want!
This site also has a free iPhone app which is more strictly informational. A good source of daily and weekly information if you just want simple updates.
You: Having a Baby
This book was given to me by a close friend early in my pregnancy. I’d already been loaned “What to Expect” and purchased the Mayo Clinic’s Guide, however, I found this book to be particularly useful. While most other books have a very specific format that goes through every month of pregnancy sequentially, I sometimes found this limiting and would skip around and eventually resort to just flipping through the index for topics of interest. While this worked just fine, it was sometimes frustrating and time-consuming. I felt like I was reading a manual rather than an informational book. “You: Having a Baby” was much more conversational and approachable. The authors made an effort to provide the information in a sequential format, however they didn’t lose my interest in the process.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting & Mayo Clinic’s Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy
As I mentioned above, these books are chock full of good information. It can be incredibly useful to have the sequential format for each stage in pregnancy. Included in both books are tips for exercise, creating good eating habits, common symptoms and complaints and much, much more. My personal preference was for something less structured that I could approach from beginning to end…but it was nothing more than personal preference.
