Baby things that you waste your money on

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Sometimes it seems that 80% of the baby products industry consists of unnecessary items that are trying to sell to caring parents. In this article, we will talk about things for young children that you will simply waste your money on.

Before listing the absolutely useless, in my opinion, things, I want to give a few principles that will greatly facilitate your life when buying children's things.

3 main shopping principles

1. First we try, then we buy

All children are different, and a thing useful for one child will be completely unnecessary for another. Therefore, before buying something (especially for expensive children's furniture, educational toys), take it from your friends and try it. If possible, of course.

Perhaps your child will be happy to ride in a walker, or maybe he will not sit in them at all. Maybe he will like the highchair, or maybe he will burst into bitter tears every time you try to put him there. By the way, these seemingly simple plastic chairs stand as if they were made of a meteorite and dinosaur bones.

2. We buy as needed

Some people prefer to stock up on children's things and all sorts of gadgets in advance, for the future. The problem is that these things may not be useful at all. For example, even during pregnancy I bought a changing board, and in the end I changed the baby's clothes in his crib, on a funny waterproof mattress cover.

3. Always remember that children grow up quickly

The smaller the child, the faster it grows. Some things you will never even have time to put on a baby. Toys quickly get bored, clothes become small. So, when you think about whether to buy something, remember that it will be useful for you for 2-3 months, and then it will become useless.

List of unnecessary things

1. Envelope for statement

If winter envelopes can still be useful: walking for the first time, albeit for a very short time, then summer ones, in my opinion, are a completely useless waste of money. The child will visit it only once, and they cost about 3,000 rubles.

2. Changing board or table

It was quite convenient for me to change the baby's clothes on a waterproof mattress topper, simply by lowering one side of the crib. If it is inconvenient to change clothes on the bed, you can do it on any table, spreading an oilcloth.

3. Diapers

Probably, you can't do without disposable. At least, I have no acquaintances who would refuse disposable diapers altogether. But at home, the child may well drive in reusable diapers. Calculated, the savings are significant.

4. Chairs for feeding

As I wrote above, they are expensive. It is quite possible to replace such a device with an ordinary high chair on which the child will sit at an adult table. Just don't leave him alone and he won't fall.

Another option is a booster chair, which costs less than a regular highchair.

5. Cradle

At first, the baby is uncomfortable in a large crib, and many buy special cradles, which cost from 10 to 80 thousand rubles (there are probably more expensive ones). Instead of such a cradle, you can use a regular infant car seat: swing it in your hands, on your knees or hang it in the doorway. When the child is asleep, transfer him to a crib with soft sides.

6. Swimming basin with slide

We bathed the baby in a basin only a couple of times, and after that we bought a swimming circle and bathed in the bathtub.

7. Children's cosmetics

The bulk of children's cosmetics will not be useful to you. I used a minimum: foam for bathing (very rarely), sterile oil. I did not buy any powders or creams for a diaper: everything was fine with the skin, but some of these products will certainly come in handy.

eight. Aspirator (if the child is not sick)

Aspirators are cheap and are essentially two small pieces of plastic connected by a tube. But for them you need to buy special disposable nozzles, which quickly run out. If the child does not have a runny nose, why clean his nose with an aspirator?

9. New clothes, especially expensive ones

Even before the birth of the child, our acquaintances gave us a bunch of children's things, so I bought quite a bit: a few undershirts, sliders, bodysuits. And still, half of what we bought was not useful, we never even put on some things. Newborns grow very quickly, so try to buy as little as possible: if necessary, you will buy everything you need.

10. Baby monitor

This purchase will come in handy for those who have a large house or a very large apartment. If you're sitting in the next room, do you really think you won't hear when the baby cries? Even your neighbors will hear.

11. Canopy over the bed

It's just a dust collector.

12. Expensive and complicated toys

Very young children can only play in this way: shove them in their mouths or throw them out of the crib. A little later, from 6 months to a year, they can already knock on something or tear it apart, and then put it in their mouth.

In general, complex toys lose their meaning. For a small child, any safe thing becomes a toy, he will play with the same interest with a teaspoon, which cost you nothing at all, and an expensive colored rattle.

13. Walkers

Healthy children learn to walk without a walker, in which it is still impossible to leave the child for more than 15 minutes. For children with some kind of disabilities, for example, with hypertonicity of the legs, walkers are generally contraindicated. Improper load balancing can aggravate the situation.

14. Bottle warmer

Many mothers who have bought this device use it twice at most. And then they take warm water to dilute the mixture from the kettle and cool it under the tap, and the children's puree is heated in the microwave, which is probably in every home. A heater can be helpful if you plan to travel with babies.

15. Baby scales with a cradle

This expensive device is useful only for problems with the weight of the child. Why do you need to weigh your baby all the time? This will be done every month in the children's clinic.

16. Wet wipe warmer

It seems to be a thing for creating super green conditions for a child. When parents try to protect their child from even the slightest discomfort in the form of a cool wet napkin, they are doing him a disservice.

17. Waste diaper bucket

This is generally from the realm of fantasy. If the diapers smell so bad, just wrap them in a packaging bag before throwing them in the bin, and the problem is solved.

18. Leash for a child

In fact, a leash is needed to keep the child from falling when he has already learned to walk, but is still very unstable. But this way you prevent the baby from learning to fall gently and correctly and get up on his own.

If a leash is used to prevent the child from running out onto the road while mom or dad are stuck in a smartphone or chatting with friends, it looks terrible. However, parents of hyperactive children have a different view of this issue.