How To: Not Buy Baby Stuff

We have not bought much for this baby so far.

I haven’t bought a cute outfit or a soft blanket. Really all we have bought is some stuff for the nursery and most of it was either given to us or purchased secondhand (that’s a post for later!).

Our first baby purchase were some little booties from our alma mater to announce the pregnancy.

The moment we found out we were expecting, we knew that it would be a slippery slope of baby stuff coming from every which direction, be it grandparents, friends, or a box being delivered on our doorstep.

For me personally, not buying stuff for the baby was not all that hard. Given that we don’t know the gender, there wasn’t much I could get anyway unless I wanted my baby to dress exclusively in grey and white (gender-neutral clothes are so lame <insert eyeroll>).

For others though, the urge to shower me in stuff was a little stronger and I had to have a conversation with both future grandmothers not to run out to Homegoods and buy everything in sight.

Right now, pretty much everything in baby’s nursery has come from someone else, be they hand me downs from other little babies in our lives or pieces of furniture.

This baby is going to get stuff though, even with the uncertainty of my baby shower even happening. I did my best to be conscious of what was going on my registry. I focused on multi-purpose items such as our bassinet/pack-in-play combo and a high chair that grows with baby. and quality materials such as wood, cotton, and glass over plastic.  Using Babylist, I was also able to ask for non-material items, such as house cleaning, babysitting, and home-cooked meals. I could even ask for preloved clothes and books!

Any advice for keeping the overwhelming amount of baby stuff at bay? Please share!

 

 

Registering for Things that Will Last

Apparently, the time has come for us to register for wedding gifts.

At first, I thought there was nothing that we really, truly, needed. Maybe some new towels and sheets. But the more I looked at it, the more I realized this was a time in our lives to upgrade to high-quality items that could legitimately last forever.

We have recently started figuring out where and what we want to register for. As we walked between three different options, K said: “I want the items on this registry to last the rest of our lives.”

And that has basically become the theme of our registries. We are looking for tools that are made from stainless steel and glass, not cheap plastic.

 

image: William Sonoma

 

For instance, K really wants a mandolin to slice vegetables nice and thin. As I have looked about for them, the only ones I can find are mostly made of plastic. I was shocked because the mandolin my mom has is entirely made of metal and that is what I thought all mandolins were made of.

Alternative facts. Fake news.

Just like my grandma’s, we want our pots and pans to able to be used by our grandchildren 65 years later.

We use my grandmother’s copper bottomed pots that she received for her own wedding shower in 1955.

No matter what the stores tell us we need to register for, we are only going to register for items we are going to use in the long run. We don’t need fine china. We are not going to register for a fondue set because it’s on a list somewhere.

I have made it a habit to poll all my married friends and family on what they use the most and the least from their wedding registry.  Hopefully, down the road, we will be able to say we use absolutely everything.