2nd Trimester
Options
Diaper shower - yay or nay??
Friends at work have mentioned throwing me a baby shower and one of the girls came up with the idea of having a diaper shower, I thought it was a great idea because I know you can never have too many diapers. I will be off work for at least 6 weeks or possibly longer and it will be quite tough for my DH and I because he has limited income and his income alone just isn't enough. While food and rent we'll be barely scratch by, I'm figuring diapers would be an added expense during my time off work and it would be nice to have a stock pile to have during that time. Just one less thing to worry about for a few weeks. Any opinions on this? Obviously I will not turn down the idea because I'm incredibility grateful to work with such great ladies.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Diaper shower - yay or nay??
I think it's a great idea.
Personally, I didn't find diapers to be a HUGE expense. Maybe $40 a month or so and I used Pampers, which aren't the cheapest. I find it much more expensive to keep my kid in clothes and shoes that fit. By the time you go through 1-2 outfits a day (messes, spit up, blow outs, etc.), plus PJs, plus an extra outfit for the diaper bag- you're either doing laundry every few days or you need quite a few clothes.
Then they grow out of them, then you have to dress across seasons, etc. etc. Don't forget socks and jackets and now underpants, too! And I'm not talking about buying expensive clothes, at all, just necessities from inexpensive stores.
If you have a lot of hand-me-downs, a diaper party is a good idea (although you wont really know what diapers you'll prefer, if the baby will have a reaction to them, etc.). But for me, getting lots of clothes is pretty valuable.
I'd say "NAY!!!"
DD and my nieces/nephew all had reactions to different brands of diapers. DD reacted to Pampers - it looked like someone literally burned her skin... The same happened to my niece on Huggies... Then another two nieces pretty much reacted to most brands of diapers out on the market.
Like a PP mentioned too, diapers really are a pretty minimal expense in the grand scheme of all the things you're going to spend on for your LO. Clothes are going to be FAR more expensive than diapers and people LOVE to buy baby clothes when given the opportunity. Then there are all the incidentals - car seat, stroller, swing, PnP, etc. DH & I worked for the same company when I was PG with DD, and they ended up going in together to get the bouncer and swing for us. Two big ticket items that we used a TON with DD...
I think it's a good idea but this is only my first so I could be wrong. I have been buying diapers ever since we found out about being pregnant. I have heard that if for some reason the LO is allergic to them I can exchange them and pay the difference in cost or that you can every exchange for different sizes. I would just see if my be they could tape gift receipts to them, and explain why so no one think you are just going to return them for something else. Well I hope that was a little helpful.
This. When I was pregnant with my DS the ladies at work threw me a clothing shower. They had people sign up for different sizes though the first year. It worked out great because I had tons of clothes to last the whole first year.
Any kind of shower your friends want to throw for you is a great idea! I'm not having a shower for this one (he'll be my second boy in two years), but we can't reuse most of my first son's clothes. I went to a couple of resale shops and got all of the clothes he'll need for the first few months for under $40. They don't need a whole wardrobe that young, just a bunch of sleepers and a couple of outfits for doctor's appointments and such.
As far as not knowing what kind of diapers you'll prefer, in our area it's common practice to attach the receipt to the diaper package. You can always return them for a different brand/size if you need to!
Our Journey
You mentioned that your finances were tight...so I also wanted to suggest looking for baby consignment stores and consignment weekend fairs/sales in your area. I have found tons were I am in Maryland that I didn't know abt with my son. You can really rack up on great quality stuff without spending tons (like 3 onesies for just $2).
Walmart will let you exchange any unopened package of diapers they carry without a receipt, typically they credit the amount to a gift card and let you go get what you want. This is helpful for sizing also, if you end up with way too many newborns or whatever. My LO was in size 1 from birth.
When LO was a newborn we were spending $80 a month on diapers, using Pampers. Even at $40 a month that's a pretty good chunk of change IMO.
I am doing something similar to this my husband and I are going to need all the help we can get with this baby. What we are doing is I wrote in the baby shower invites is that if the person would like their name put into a special raffle to bring a package of diapers and the more diapers that they bring the better chance they have of winning the raffle. For the raffle prize we are going to go and spend about $20 on a gift basket of a bunch of different things like candles, bath soaps, lotion and other cute things. Good Luck.