Selecting a Gift for New Baby
Posted on January 8, 2008
Filed Under Discounts on Products and Supplies for New Baby, New Baby Cards & Birth Announcements | 2 Comments
After sending out the new baby cards, parents are going to expect a response from each recipient, usually in the form of a gift. (We didn’t make the rules, we just report on them.) Some good ideas that generally work well for new baby gifts are: baby clothes, diapers, baby supplies, heirloom gifts, and homemade meals.
New Baby Clothes - You can select a nice outfit for the new child. Most baby gifts come in the 0 - 6 month range. New babies get so many of these clothes that sometimes they can only wear a particular outfit 2 or 3 times before the baby outgrows the outfit. So, if you decide to purchase a new outfit, select in the 6 - 12 month size range. The baby will be able to wear the outfit longer before outgrowing it. Or, instead of a single, nice outfit, some parents appreciate the more practical gift of several plain onesies. Onesies are body suits for infants. They usually have snaps to open between the legs for easy diaper access, and they’re made of durable fibers which can handle stains and frequent washing. And, chances are that a pack of 6 onesies will get a lot more use than a velvet jumper with a duck embroidered on it!
Diapers - A large supply of diapers is always a useful gift for a new baby. It is not a glamorous gift but it is useful. You can purchase several boxes for the baby and parents to use over the course of a couple of weeks. These are an excellent way to help the parents have new baby savings.
Baby Supplies - Other useful gifts for the new baby are: baby bathtub, baby bathtub ring, Swaddle Me Blanket, Happiest Baby on the Block DVD, blankets, a bouncer seat, and an exersaucer each are useful baby supplies that make nice gifts.
Heirloom Gifts - Purchasing an heirloom gift is also an option. This type gift may be a silver spoon, a silver cup, silver baby rattle, or a silver piggy bank. Additionally, it may be a ceramic piggy bank with a silver dollar in it to kick off the new baby savings account.
Homemade Meals - The first couple of weeks of a new baby’s life and the life of the baby’s parents is very hectic and accompanied by little sleep and much stress over the care of the baby. If you live close by and can cook fairly well, taking a homemade meal or two to the new family will be a meaningful gift. To dress this gift up a bit, wrap the food in a baby blanket, put it in a decorative basket, print a menu out on decorative paper or cardstock, and include the new baby card you selected. This will make the meal look much more appealing. But, honestly, the parents will be so glad you thought of them and brought them food that they probably will not care what it looks like when it is delivered.
There are also several places online that you can choose Unique and Personalized Baby Gifts.
Choose one of these and you probably won’t go wrong.
Check out our posts on the subject of New Baby Sayings:
New Baby Sayings 1
New Baby Sayings 2
New Baby Sayings 3
New Baby Sayings 4
New Baby Sayings 5
Click New Baby Cards & Savings Guide for more ideas. New Baby Cards New Baby Cards
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Saving Money on Diapers and Wipes
Posted on January 4, 2008
Filed Under Discounts on Products and Supplies for New Baby, Uncategorized | 1 Comment
In the first three months after we brought our newborn twins home from the hospital, we were so delirious from sleep deprivation that we blew an enormous amount of money for speed and convenience. One of us would wander into the store with only one eye open, severe bed-head (not that we had been sleeping), various unidentified stains on our shirts, unmatched socks, pants possibly on backwards, shoes untied, and mumbling unintelligible words and phrases under our breath. We would find our way to the diaper aisle (all the way at the back of the freakin’ store) and use both arms to shovel cases of diapers and wipes into the cart. At the time, we had no idea how much we were paying and we were too tired to care. So we would go through the checkout and allow the cashier to suck unknown amounts of money out of our account.
Obviously that is not the most intelligent or frugal way to get diapers and wipes for your new baby (in our case new babies). And, if you just don’t care about New Baby Savings and want the fastest, cleanest, and easiest tools for baby poo removal, knock yourself out. (We won’t judge you as we have been there ourselves!) But there are, of course, much more economical ways to take care of the inevitable flow of number 1’s and number 2’s that your new baby will produce. Using cloth (reusable) diapers and making your own wipes at home are your best bets for saving tremendous amounts of money.
We found some places on the web to order cloth diapers in bulk (Chinese Prefold Cloth Diaper : Small (up to 15 lbs)
Swish the soiled diapers in the toilet to get the bulky matter out and then store them in a large, airtight, plastic container (like a Safety 1st Simple Step Diaper Pail
Cloth diapers are very thick and absorbent. But they do not hold as much as disposable diapers. {For example right on the box of Pampers Swaddlers, Size 2, Economy Plus Pack, 184 ct
} So with cloth diapers you’re going to need to change them more often.
You can also get plastic or rubber covers to put over the outside of the diaper. These keep the contents from leaking out and getting on clothes, furniture, and most importantly you. The downside is that they create a sort of greenhouse effect inside the diaper and can lead to more diaper rash if you’re not diligent. So, again, check and change often.
The bottom line is that cloth diapers do have their drawbacks. But if you can handle the moderate inconveniences your New Baby Savings will add up to several hundred dollars per year.
We will address homemade diaper wipes in a future post.
Click New Baby Savings Guide for more information. New Baby Cards New Baby Cards
Take a look at our posts on the subject of New Baby Sayings:
New Baby Sayings 1
New Baby Sayings 2
New Baby Sayings 3
New Baby Sayings 4
New Baby Sayings 5
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New Baby Savings at Consignment Sales
Posted on January 3, 2008
Filed Under Discounts on Products and Supplies for New Baby, Used Baby Clothes and Supplies | Leave a Comment
In our experience the best place by far to find new baby savings and low-priced baby supplies, baby clothes, kid clothes, furniture, toys, videos, music CDs, books, and all kinds of kid equipment is at consignment sales. These are different than consignment stores and we’ll explain how. New Baby Cards
A consignment store is a company, usually located in a retail shopping center, that is open most of the year on a regular schedule. They take in used items and display them in the store for sale. When the item sells, they keep a cut of the profit and pay the rest to the person who brought the item in. They typically have nice clothing items, but the selection is usually limited. And they have to add more to the cost of each item to pay their operating expenses like rent and electricity, so the prices go up and your new baby savings are limited.
A consignment sale is generally a seasonal event which is held once or twice per year by a civic group like a church or a twins club. The sale will be held in a big location like a church gymnasium, and will last 2 or 3 days. New baby savings are abundant at these events.
The items that are being sold are brought in by the members of the group. And because in most cases the original sellers actually work as volunteers at the event the prices at these sales are almost always lower than at consignment stores.
Depending on the size of the organization, the variety of new baby savings items available at a sale can be enormous. We’ve been to one that took up a full size gymnasium plus a very large dining hall and 3 other rooms in a large church. Having all of this inventory in one place is much more convenient than driving from garage sale to garage sale rifling through people’s junk. And it’s way more stuff than you will find at a consignment store.
Since kids outgrow clothes, toys, and furniture so quickly, they usually haven’t had a chance to put much wear-and-tear on the items. So you can purchase items that are almost as good as new for about 60% to 90% off of the retail price. BIG NEW BABY SAVINGS!
For example - we bought two ExerSaucers (Evenflo ExerSaucer 3-in-1 Pond
We will be compiling lists of groups around the United States which hold consignment sales in future posts. So watch for that to come on the New Baby Savings Guide.
Have a look at our posts on the subject of New Baby Sayings:
New Baby Sayings 1
New Baby Sayings 2
New Baby Sayings 3
New Baby Sayings 4
New Baby Sayings 5
