Buying Gear/Preparing

HannaB

How much stuff did you buy/accumulate before your LO came home (or while you're still waiting)?

In our 2 years of TTC I really steered clear of baby clothes/gear, because I just couldn't go there. But now, I am feeling like I want to buy stuff/get prepared!

Do you have a nursery set up? Or are you on the other end with one lonely onesie waiting in a drawer?

hway24

I plan to get most stuff before we get a LO. I didn't dare look at any of that stuff while TTC either, but now that I know we will have a baby, I feel ok buying things. We've already had a baby shower and got stuff there, I haven't personally bought anything yet, mostly because right now we're still saving to finish paying for the adoption. But we plan to have the nursery finished before we bring a LO home. But I probably won't buy too many clothes until we have LO home, since we don't know gender, how big he/she might be, or what season it'll be. I think it's definately a personal choice, and depends on what you're comfortable with. I have no problem looking at an empty nursery. Plus planning, decorating, and doing crafts for the room gives me something to do while we wait!!

Amy720

I was on the end where we only had a few baby clothes.  I didn't want to look at a nursery when I had no idea how long we would have to wait.  We were a quick placement too and got the call and the next day had a baby in our arms.  We had to travel 12 hours to pick him up. We grabbed some essentials at Wal-Mart on the way out of town.  Ben was 6 weeks old when we got the nursery ready and had showers. We registered at BRU when we got back.  You can get by with not having anything or you can be totally prepared.  It's up to you.

amm78

We are opting to have a Welcome Baby Shower after we bring our baby home, so we don't want to buy everything now because we want people to be able to give us gifts from a registry if they want to.  But, we have come across some deals what were too good to pass up, so we have purchased a crib and changing table ($99), a Pack N Play ($48), and a stroller/car seat travel system ($59).  We also have some onesies and gender neutral outfits that I got at a consignment sale.  We plan to decorate our nursery once the home study is complete (hopefully that will be in another 2 months or so).

Dr.Loretta

My thinking about this changed as we went through the process, and to be honest, after getting some feedback on this board.

We weren't going to get a single thing until we went active with our profile. But someone posted a similar question when they were only at the beginning of their homestudy. Those moms who had quick placements recommended getting started ASAP so you didn't end up with a newborn and sleep deprivation while stalking the aisles of a store looking for baby gear.

We decided we were going to get the "Big 4" during our homestudy: crib, PacknPlay, stroller, and car seat. And start accumulating whatever else as we went along.

From my perspective (and others may disagree), I'm really glad we did. We were chosen 3 months after our profile went active, with an emergency placement (baby was already born, we had about 36 hours to have the house ready for a baby). As it was, DH still ended up at the store the night we brought DD home. We didn't have a crib mattress, and he ended up buying anything that said "newborn" on it.

Our nursery was set up as far as having the basics, but we never went with a whole theme or needing to paint and do a ton to the room anyway, so it was a pretty straightforward proposition.

GL

mrsjessroo

I am a bit of a planner and the whole concept of adoption and not knowing when drove me crazy! We decided to get the nursery in order once the home study was complete since we knew that getting the room ready was one thing we could control. We will be having a welcome home party when DS is about 6 weeks old.

GLynn2009

Our baby was born 26 months before w brought her home and it took that long to do weed through all the red tape for our adoption.

We had storm damage to our house in April 2009 so we painted DD's room a bright yellow and I made some butterfly curtains and looked around when I was feeling sad about it taking so long for cute butterfly stuff. I waited until she came home in Sept 2009 to buy the toddler bed because she was crawling out of her crib and for us to buy one would have been a waste of money. Our mothers bought car seats and I went to consignment sales when we finally had a travel date to buy clothes. I had DD's room set-up and we converted a hall closet into DD's closet since her new room is the old den.

Do whatever you feel good with. Some days I did not want to look at DD's room and some days I worked and worked to get it ready.

PrincessShay80

When we were in our classes I started buying a few things, bouncer, swing, car seat, stroller,stuff like that- I caught some good sales, becasue it was during the black friday sales.  Once our home study was complete and we were all approved- we ordered the crib and changing table.  We got DD within a month of being approved- so I was happy to have the major things. I had some clothes, baby monitor, bottles, pacifers, blankets, small toys.

The day before we got DD I ran out and bought diapers, more bottles, formula, swaddlers, the stuff that was more specific to her. Oh yea and a bunch of pink girly clothes. All the gender netural stuff that I bought before- I have never used- the tags are still on it!

I avoided the baby stuff like the plague when we were TTC- it was fun to let that in and enjoy shopping for it.

Ranita

When I first felt like I was ready to be a mom I bought one little onesie.  Incidentally our DS never wore it as we did IA and he was just slightly too big.  But anyway, when we chose adoption and started our homestudy we just focused on that and on purging stuff out of our house that we didn't need.  When we had our final homestudy interview (our HS process took about 3 months, I know that is not common in the states), we bought the crib and shortly after that some bedding.  While we were waiting for a referral we collected a few things, but not too much.  We did a teddy bear nursery so we bought a Build a Bear and such, and then the dresser/change table because we wanted it to coordinate with the crib.  Then we waited until we were matched to purchase other items but constantly looked and researched.  Part of this was because we didn't even know age doing IA.  Once we were matched we bought the carseat, moby, and things that we knew we'd need in country and then were blessed with 2 showers.  So ours was very much a slow and steady accumulation.  If I had it to do over, I think I'd do it the same.  It wasn't overkill and we didn't have to look at a piled up room for forever, but it was nesting which I still needed and wanted.  HTH

HannaB

Thanks for the responses everyone. I like the idea of "the big 4," and think that's the route we'll go. We already have a crib mattress (because my mom can't help herself), and I've started researching car seats/systems. I at least know which one I want to get when we get the call.

As much as I really want to put a nursery together, I'm not sure I can Go There. (We just built a brand new house, so at least we have an empty room just waiting!)