Our friend B___ is due to give birth in two weeks. In reality, two weeks means any time from now on. Today, she had a load of us over to celebrate her birthday. Obviously being pregnant, B___ can't drink but she came up with an excellent idea for a party - a cake party! Everyone had to bring one and put it on the table. Cue cake orgy!
B___ and husband M___ took us to see their nursery. They have decided not to know what flavour of baby they're getting, and so the room is decorated in quite neutral colours. As K___ pointed out, that's no bad thing as they'll be able to keep the main part of the room the same and use accents in the accessories and that will probably keep the decor working for a lot longer than a powder pink or powder blue room! M___ did concede that it made choosing clothes a little harder because manufacturers find it difficult to think outside of blue is for boys, pink is for girls! They had a lovely bed/crib; really substantial and well designed.
A lot of us ended up in the garden and naturally there was some baby-related discussion. We were laughing about the whole expense of the baby thing (it's either that or cry, so you know...) It was mentioned that the mere fact of something being for a baby means that manufacturers automatically add an extra zero to the price. My friend E____ made the observation that they can do this with the implication, '...and if you don't pay ten million pounds for a bottle steriliser, it means you don't love your baby; bad parent.' We all laughed at that (you know, to save us from crying) but M___ mentioned how good eBay is for getting some of the essentials. He mentioned nappies.
Initially, K___ and I had decided that we would go for an environmentally friendly option; terry nappies or some variant. However, subsequent conversations with other mums suggested that as noble as that notion was, it might not be entirely practical. Several times in this Blog, I have made reference to the radioactive shit that I can expect to haunt my dreams in the early days after the baby's arrival. This is no idle threat.
For the first month or so, the baby's cack is a truly special gift. The first poop, known as meoconium, is sterile and largely okay. This is comprised of the stuff that the baby has had in its digestive system during the pregnancy. It's after that the miracle new arrival into your life starts giving you presents of noxious, highly pungent and, yes, sticky excrement. Reports of how bad this stuff is vary considerably, but it is no word of a lie to say that NBC suits may be required while changing baby. With junior being the Toxic Avenger's slightly more poisonous protege, mums have told us that it's really too much to keep soiled nappies in the house because the smell will permeate the woodwork and discolour the brickwork. And no, this is not much of an exaggeration.
With this in mind, we have decided that we will use disposables for the first month while junior is going through this stage. We'd sincerely prefer not to, but at the same time, we feel it's better to be pragmatic and then move onto recyclable once this moment has passed.
When we got in, K___ immediately jumped onto eBay and sure enough, we found a pack of birth-to-potty recyclable nappies from Bambino Mio, the brand we've chosen to go with. Normally, one of these packs retails for about £250. It contains literally every recyclable nappy (48 of the buggers) and covers that you need to get the kid through to be able to potty training. On eBay, these packs seem to be available for under £100. Perhaps people get given them as unwanted gifts, or decide that disposables are easier, but there's a tonne of these things on there!
So, an afternoon eating cakes and talking nappies, and we saved ourselves a huge amount of money. Nice!
B___ and husband M___ took us to see their nursery. They have decided not to know what flavour of baby they're getting, and so the room is decorated in quite neutral colours. As K___ pointed out, that's no bad thing as they'll be able to keep the main part of the room the same and use accents in the accessories and that will probably keep the decor working for a lot longer than a powder pink or powder blue room! M___ did concede that it made choosing clothes a little harder because manufacturers find it difficult to think outside of blue is for boys, pink is for girls! They had a lovely bed/crib; really substantial and well designed.
A lot of us ended up in the garden and naturally there was some baby-related discussion. We were laughing about the whole expense of the baby thing (it's either that or cry, so you know...) It was mentioned that the mere fact of something being for a baby means that manufacturers automatically add an extra zero to the price. My friend E____ made the observation that they can do this with the implication, '...and if you don't pay ten million pounds for a bottle steriliser, it means you don't love your baby; bad parent.' We all laughed at that (you know, to save us from crying) but M___ mentioned how good eBay is for getting some of the essentials. He mentioned nappies.
Initially, K___ and I had decided that we would go for an environmentally friendly option; terry nappies or some variant. However, subsequent conversations with other mums suggested that as noble as that notion was, it might not be entirely practical. Several times in this Blog, I have made reference to the radioactive shit that I can expect to haunt my dreams in the early days after the baby's arrival. This is no idle threat.
For the first month or so, the baby's cack is a truly special gift. The first poop, known as meoconium, is sterile and largely okay. This is comprised of the stuff that the baby has had in its digestive system during the pregnancy. It's after that the miracle new arrival into your life starts giving you presents of noxious, highly pungent and, yes, sticky excrement. Reports of how bad this stuff is vary considerably, but it is no word of a lie to say that NBC suits may be required while changing baby. With junior being the Toxic Avenger's slightly more poisonous protege, mums have told us that it's really too much to keep soiled nappies in the house because the smell will permeate the woodwork and discolour the brickwork. And no, this is not much of an exaggeration.
With this in mind, we have decided that we will use disposables for the first month while junior is going through this stage. We'd sincerely prefer not to, but at the same time, we feel it's better to be pragmatic and then move onto recyclable once this moment has passed.
When we got in, K___ immediately jumped onto eBay and sure enough, we found a pack of birth-to-potty recyclable nappies from Bambino Mio, the brand we've chosen to go with. Normally, one of these packs retails for about £250. It contains literally every recyclable nappy (48 of the buggers) and covers that you need to get the kid through to be able to potty training. On eBay, these packs seem to be available for under £100. Perhaps people get given them as unwanted gifts, or decide that disposables are easier, but there's a tonne of these things on there!
So, an afternoon eating cakes and talking nappies, and we saved ourselves a huge amount of money. Nice!
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