I was just reading a post by another blogger about how much she has spent on her unborn child, so I thought I’d make a list and check out my total. I’m going to start with maternity clothes – I am rotating between three pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, one swimsuit, five shirts, two bras that now only “kinda” fit (though it was much talked about amongst my friends, especially in the beginning as I grew a full cup size but still had a mostly flat tummy – one lovely “symptom” of pregnancy that I hadn’t mentioned until now). The approximate total for all that is about $300.
My first actual purchase for Sophia was a brand new and very expensive 2006 Model Red Zooper Boogie Stroller. I bought it on eBay so I actually saved money (compared to buying same one at a store for full price plus sales tax), but with shipping I spent $362 – Ouch! I really like the stroller though because I can either have Sophia facing the world or facing me, it reclines, and the front wheel swivels so I don’t have to tilt and turn. My next purchase was a used baby swing ($35), then a crib ($125), the garage sale clothing and shopping cart cover (about $15). On Friday I bought a Graco Comfort Sport Car Seat – Watercolor Flower pattern for $89.99 at Target and I bought some baby clothes at Costco ($22.27). Oh and there was the time I went nuts at Oshkosh ($70.78 – Kurt will find out sooner or later anyway). Two other things I bought on eBay were, “Sign with your Baby Complete Learning Kit” for $21.50 and a very cute Halloween costume for $15 (both include shipping cost). My grand total so far is about $1060.00. We’re probably going to have to get a second car seat, two cars = two car seats. And I’m still looking into cloth diapers. Thank you to those that commented on that one.
We had the most trouble with the grandparents to be wanting to buy everything in sight as soon as we told them about their upcoming grandchild. So we barely spent anything on baby clothes. Maternity clothes were a different story!
Oh, and I highly recommend signing with your baby, even if it seems it isn’t going anywhere. With our daughter Amelia, we would use a sign for months, and finally give up because she just wasn’t getting it (we thought). A few months later, she’d start using the sign in just the right context. At two years old, she has quite the vocabulary.