Preparing for welcoming the baby by purchasing the initial equipment for your newborn sounds like a lot of fun and it certainly is one of things most moms-to-be enjoy the most. I personally was very much looking forward to the “preparing the nest” phase of the pregnancy. Hubs and me spent many weekends looking for stuff we would need but more importantly that we liked and soon we learned that buying some of the things is not as simple as it sounds and that it sometimes comes close to science, especially if you live in Germany.
As far as I remember, when one of my relatives was expecting or even when my mom was pregnant with my little brother (I was eleven then), everyone was very relaxed about purchasing the necessary items for the baby. That was a joy for everyone. I remember my grandma sewing burp cloths, bed linens and little shirts for her grandchildren. After she passed away, either one of my very gifted and crafty aunts took that role over or the items were bought. I don’t remember people worrying too much about how much they had to buy. And many of the priciest items were given as the main present at the baby shower. Apart from the clothing, the list was simple: diapers, baby bottles, sterilizer, baby bathtub, cots and/or travel cots, linens and towels, covers, stroller, hygiene articles (which were kept in a fancy basket on my mom’s bedside table) and maybe already a high chair. To that time no one was worried about a car seat, safety was important but remember, our easygoingness didn’t know limits.
Meanwhile, many things may have changed and people are getting nuts when buying things for the baby. This is definitely due to very aggressive marketing campaigns and the impact or, let's say, peer pressure on social media. But also in part due to the growing sensitization towards safety, not only when traveling with the baby but also referring to the materials things are made of. Fair enough. I still have the impression that in my country the latter matters but doesn’t play such a big role as, say, in Germany, where everything needs to be super organic. In our culture, it is more important that things look nice and fulfill their needs and you can show off with them every now and then. I never saw anyone reading thousands of product test articles on the net or in magazines or the like. There are just brands with good reputation and quality price ratio and people just buy them. This is why parents and some of my relatives told me many times that we were exaggerating and worrying too much about the first equipment.
The truth is, nowadays it is crazy how new parents spend money. Brands as well as media tell you what you need in such an aggressive way and there is no better business than making new parents spend money. Especially if you live in a country like Germany where everything is regulated, controlled and safety is a number one concern. And then there was the fact that baby articles in Germany are not very appealing and are nevertheless pricey, added to the peer pressure fact. I heard acquaintances telling about how much they spent in furniture or the super stroller and that you have to buy or at least order way in advance. I found myself going through so many baby’s first gear lists telling me all we would definitely need that at the end my love for shopping started demeaning at a very rapid pace. I finally gathered the most helpful information on Baby Center and other guidebooks alike in a two-page checklist divided in five parts: clothing, furniture and electronic devices, hygiene articles, mobility devices and feeding devices.
And this is how we went through it.
Clothing and linens of all sorts
This was the most fun part and you can read about it in another post. We purchased many things in Spain during our babymoon and back in Berlin. Zara and H&M were our temples. I know, the way they produce and how they treat their employees in third world countries is rather questionable and I actually don't agree with that either, but in my case, buying their products had a budgetary reason. But that is a topic to be discussed in another post.
The bulk part came from Colombia and the US. For my mom it was a dream come true taking care of it. And for me, too. Since we had a summer baby, we soon realised that what he needed the most (but also every newborn needs) are onesies with different kind of sleeves, socks, and lots of burp cloths and Pjs. We also had many blankets and swaddle me’s for sleeping (this item saved my life and allowed me to sleep a little bit more. I can highly recommend). Whereas in summer, it is fun and more likely to bring up many outfits for the baby, having a baby in winter means, that you are likely to be at home often. Therefore my key items were lots of bodies and pants, as well as tights and my second baby had three or four outfits with individual parts that were combinable with each other. My favorite were knit pants and cardigans (from Zara).
Furniture
One of my mommy acquaintances told me that they had spent almost 800 euros only in furniture. I couldn’t believe it. But is possible. If you go to Baby Walz and places the like you will find very expensive furniture with the pureness of the chemical-free materials as their plea. Another friend told me that they just went straight to Ikea and that they were pretty fine with the quality. And that was just what we did. We spent a couple of afternoons there getting informed about how the furniture works and what to buy or not. Since we were going to stay in our two-room apartment for a while, the baby furniture was going to stand in our bedroom. So it was easy to decide on what to buy: cots, closet and changing table with lots of drawers.
The idea of the changing table was new to me. Back in Colombia, I had never seen one. Either because people didn’t find it necessary or maybe there is no tradition of having one. So, I also didn’t feel the need to have one. But here it is a must have. So we bought one. But a very simple one with shelves for the diapers and other things necessary when changing diapers or dressing the baby. I don’t complain. It is indeed a necessary piece of furniture regarding the fact that it goes easy on your back and it is a good storage solution.
In the case of the cot and the closet we opted for Ikea’s STUVA System mainly because you can arrange the closet according to your needs and the cot also offers storage room thanks to the drawers at the bottom. But we ended up buying the GONATT cot instead since the STUVA was sold out for months. Gonatt also has drawers under the mattress and later, when the baby becomes a toddler, you can remove one of the grids.
And last but not least, the rocking chair! I think there is not one Latin American kid that wasn't nursed or brought to sleep in a rocking chair. So for me this was a must! My mom was as happy as me when I told her I had found one. However, I had to explain to my husband what it was for because this is a rather rare piece of furniture in Germany. And in retrospective, I'm sure that he found it helpful, too, even though it robbed a lot of space in our bedroom. It still accompanies us today and the kids love to sit together on it.
Electronic devices
Regarding the electronic devices, we only wanted to have a baby phone. Hubs spent some hours researching them because, as you may know, meanwhile you can have whatever feature you wish. We opted for an easy one, without camera but with lullabies from Avent. One of my brothers gave it to us as a baby welcoming present. Furthermore, since we were having our first baby in summer and our apartment was quite warm, even in winter, we decided not to buy a radiant heater. Instead, and since it was a very warm summer, we bought a new ventilator as soon as we returned from the hospital so that we had one for the living room and one for the sleeping room.
Hygiene articles
This was an easy part. On one hand because I knew that my mom, as a dermatologist, would bring some good creams and products for me and the baby. On the other hand, I asked one of my very good friends with kids what had worked out for them and I just bought the same.
I remember an acquaintance telling me that preferably all creams and shampoo for the baby as well as for the mom should be odor free since fragrances could bother the baby and the best fragrance for them is the mom’s natural one. I thought to myself “yeah right, those tiny babies have such a fine developed nose, what if I just smell because I couldn’t take a shower or because it just puked on me?”. There was no way I would stop using normal fragranced shower gels and perfumes since they made me feel clean. I also love how baby soaps smell, so I went for them! And today, my kids love, love to be creamed, to bath and use shampoo and even baby perfume, which is a taboo in Germany for which other moms and (eco)friendly midwives will point at you as a bad mom who smears the baby with lots of chemicals. It is rather a very personal decision. Go for whatever feels right to you. What I can highly recommend are soap free soaps and a good body cream, for instance products by Cetaphil or Avéne, especially if the baby happens to have neurodermitis .
Then I discovered the one-way changing mats and I loved and kept them until my sons were eight months old. They were not only useful for on the go but also at home, especially during the first months when the poop is very soft, almost fluid and can leak out of the diaper.
But the most striking device is the diaper pail and boy, they make a lot of money out of them! The most common are those with the expensive bag cartridges. We felt we would be slaved by them and the cartridges’ price. I asked my friends again. Some of them used the good old nappy bucket. But we finally found one big pail in form of a R2D2 on diet, hermetic and big enough, for more money than a normal bucket but way cheaper than the ones with the cartridges in the long run. It still stands strong in our bathroom and I guess that nothing will change within the next year.
Feeding equipment
For me it was clear that I would definitely try exclusive breastfeeding (another good post on this to come). But every now and then I had doubts about how it would go since some friends had had serious issues and ended up using the baby bottle. I wanted to be prepared for properly feeding my baby. So I researched a little bit about baby bottles. Most of my friends opted for the Avent bottles and I discovered Medela. My best friend, who lives in the US since many years, also recommended me Dr. Brown’s, which didn’t exist to my time as a new mom in Germany.
But I finally chose to purchase the Tommee Tippee bottles after watching a good mom vlog on YouTube. A quite unknown brand in Germany, Tommee Tippee comes from the UK and focuses on colic-free bottles in the form of the female breasts. They looked really nice and were not as expensive as the other brands. And they didn’t disappoint. Thank God breastfeeding really worked out so well from the beginning that both of my kids weren’t very happy when they became a bottle with my milk when I was not around. But that bottle worked well for them. As part of the feeding equipment we also ordered the sterilizer for the microwave, which was less expensive than the electric one, and my friends gave us the milk hand pump, the bottle warmer and the little milk containers, all from Tommee Tippee, as baby shower presents.
And, we didn’t buy many pacifiers, only a couple. And I’m happy about that, since none of my sons liked them at all and neither did we as parents. There's definitely nothing like a good cuddle, closeness and breastfeeding to calm a baby.
Mobility devices
This was definitely the less fun part! In Germany, the stroller comes close to a status symbol for new parents, something I don’t really care much about although I would be lying if I wouldn’t say that I never dreamed of going for a walk with my baby in a nice Bugaboo. To me they seemed so simple yet beautiful and cool. Actually, I was looking forward to buying the stroller, until we visited the shop after our internet research. And then we went to Baby Walz, to the time of my first pregnancie, one of the few shops where you could see relatively nice strollers from different brands live.
They explained us that we would actually need two different components for the stroller: a carry cot and a sport seat. The first for the first six months and the second for later until the toddler grows out of it. I was like “What the heck? In Colombia no one uses the carrier cot?!”. Well probably because we don’t do strolls with the baby in the neighborhood but move by car.
And then there were the do’s and don’ts, the shoulds and shouldn’ts and the musts. Boy, that was as complicated as rocket science! I’m not lying when I say that we spent four Saturday afternoons in two different Baby Walz stores and another at Babyone looking at different models and designs. When looking at the prices it was clear that we wouldn’t buy a Bugaboo. And the sight was rather depressing: there were strollers with either really ugly patterns or just black ones. We finally opted for an Italian brand, the Peg Pèrego Book Plus in chocolate color, which looked very elegant. And we were so lucky that the day we ordered it, there were some special offers in the store, so we became the stroller with carrier cot, sport seat, car seat and diaper bag in the same color and pattern for 800 euro plus a twenty percent discount coupon because that day we had purchased for more than 100 euro. From that coupon we were able to buy our R2D2 diaper pail and our beloved foldable baby bathtub from Stokke. Well, I guess this paid off the whole stress. However, as we are in Germany, it took a month until the stroller with all its many parts was finally delivered at out place. I think my parents still cannot believe that we paid that little fortune for a stroller! But at the end, we were veryy happy with the strollers quality and both our kids enjoyed it as well. It really had nice features and the new models have been improving a lot.
When our first son was one year old and since we use to travel either to the German or the Colombian grandparents, we bought a buggy. It was the London Up by Chicco. A very light and good looking one. We loved it and it soon replaced the Peg Pèrego until one of the tires was damaged in an airport.
And finally, the last item we purchased, because it was another scientific procedure, was the baby carrier. Again we spent hours on the internet and in Baby Walz looking for an appealing yet really ergonomic carrier that would be comfortable enough for the baby and our backs without becoming bad looks from other disagreeing moms. Our Midwife also recommended us to visit a store in Neukölln specialized in baby carriers, including baby slings. For us it was clear that we wouldn’t get a sling. On the one hand because I was afraid to letting the baby fall since I am very clumsy and on the other hand because it didn’t match, let’s say, with our lifestyle. We are all for nice looking things although I have to say, that in the last years, things have improved a lot and there are now many new and nice brands.
We tried all kinds of carriers, we went even to the specialized store, we tried them with dummies and everything until we found our two favorites: The BabyBjörn One and the ergobaby 360°. However, we finally decided to wait until the baby was born to try them on before buying and I think that was the best thing to do. They were both in the same price range. The ergobaby 360° in a nice light grey was the chosen one. And it was definitely the best decision! We loved that carrier and it is without a doubt a key piece for everyday life and for bonding with the baby. I was very thankful for using one especially when traveling for almost a day every time we went to Colombia.
We prevailed.
When you have kids, you never stop buying stuff, but once you are done with the first equipment you feel like you've conquered the world. Especially if you manage to find good looking articles in Germany. Luckily for new parents, things seem to be improving since a couple of years, regarding the fact, that the quest is very time consuming and expensive. It is important to get good value for money and to know from the very beginning that many things are not even really necessary.
I also like very much the fact that many new parents opt for buying second hand, especially when it comes to purchasing the more expensive items like stroller and baby carrier. Nowadays, there are so many possibilities for doing so. Either on ebay Kleinanzeigen or in the parents groups on Facebook or Mamikreisel. Therefore, every time I decide to say goodbye to one of those items my kids no more need, I am happy to know that they will make a new family happy and a baby comfortable.
I want to use this opportunity to thank once again all friends and family members who contributed to our son’s first gear. Every time I have one of those presents in my hands or see the picture I think of you and feel very grateful!
Now, I wish you lots of fun, nesting for your baby!