What's your baby set-up? - Page 2

[smeep]

Originally Posted by nintendork 

Thanks for the compliments guys, we agonized over the color and I am so glad it turned out just the way we wanted it.  The chair is actually from Ikea and the shelving unit was from a garage sale.  I LOVE a good deal lol.  I am still waiting for my husband to finish refinishing the dresser so I can put away all of the piles of clothes we got at our baby shower.  I was thinking i would do a drawer per size (btw the tags lie!  so I ended up making piles by clothes that are the same size and just disregarded the tags).  

Since I am new I have a question about the changing area, what needs to be handy?  Diapers and wipes, check, what else?

Ditto on the lying tags. Hence why I have two different sizes in two different drawers. And when I go through them I also sort by physical size somewhat (you can usually tell when something is significantly bigger or smaller than it's friends in the same size group).

Some might say baby powder and/or diaper rash cream in the changing area. Me? Not so much. I barely ever used any last time and won't even be buying either this time... DS didn't get rashes until 3 mos and I switched to cloth and that solved it. I never used the diaper rash cream again beyond that couple of weeks. So I figure this time I'll get it if I need it. But that's just me.

I'm CDing so I've got the various diapers, liners, wipes, I'll need wipe solution, I need a wet bag (well...it would be ideal, but a trash can with a laundry bag will work fine if I can't get a wet bag)... really, I can't think of anything else. Oh! Changing pads! I have the reusable changing pads. They were awesome because I used them pretty much anywhere I changed him. I found that I rarely needed them with DS, though, so the probably 8ish I had really weren't necessary...but this one might not be so nice so I'm keeping the extras just in case. Haha. Yeah, that's about all I can think of. 

[nintendork]

See I was wondering about baby powder, cause I see it at the store but I don't have any friends who use it.  We have a changing pad with a few different washable covers.  We plan to CD after the first couple of weeks once we get the hang of this whole baby thing, or at least enough of it to be conscious.  A friend suggested we use cloth wipes and a cloth pail liner so we can just throw the whole thing in the wash and not have to pick out trash.  

[bluebirdmama]

Originally Posted by finnegansmom 

...they do OK until about 12-2am and then one by one they come dashing into our bed.  There is no way we can have 5 bodies in one bed, even our king size.

Yes to this!! Especially since they never all wake at the same time, so in addition to nursing in the night, I'll be woken by the other two climbing into bed. It's been getting gradually better over the last month, but still not optimal.

[bluebirdmama]

We live in a 2 bedroom, 800 sq ft house so for now, we have no room for anything extra. We'll likely be co-sleeping at least for a while. We move in May and hopefully will have room to set up a crib at that point (as an experiment - we co-slept with our other two until they were 3 and 2 respectively).

Diapers are being stored where DD's diapers were previously (she's almost totally using the toilet now). We have two drawers in the kids' dresser set aside for the baby clothes and we put shelves and an extra bar in the closet so we could move more of the bigger kids' clothes in there. We're having a loft bed built for DS and we're waiting for that to arrive now so we can organize their room better so there's a bit of extra room for baby stuff (clothes, dipes, linens) even though the baby will be with us in our room for a good long time. Our king size bed and 1 dresser take up our whole room.

We've never had a change table before but this house has hardwood floors, no bathroom counter (pedestal sink) and our bed is only a foot off the floor so there's no good alternative for changing a newborn either so I'm watching craigslist to see if I can find something cheap - but ahh, where to put it??? Maybe move our dresser into our closet?

[pixiekisses]

Originally Posted by nintendork 

See I was wondering about baby powder, cause I see it at the store but I don't have any friends who use it.  We have a changing pad with a few different washable covers.  We plan to CD after the first couple of weeks once we get the hang of this whole baby thing, or at least enough of it to be conscious.  A friend suggested we use cloth wipes and a cloth pail liner so we can just throw the whole thing in the wash and not have to pick out trash.  

I can recommend potato flour. It's completely natural. Baby powder usually has chemicals and perfume etc. and it's not good to inhale too much of it. Potato flour is completely harmless though, and it keeps the bub dry. It's very common here, used a lot. Brilliant stuff.

We use mostly wash clothes/cloth wipes with kiddo and just drop those in the pail liner with the CD's, very easy system.

In the very start though, I use compresses to wash baby with, they are so super soft (softer than cloth wipes too), so I like them for that reason. But we have a little trash can in the bathroom anyway, so they just go there.

[sweeteleanor]

Well babe will be in the "nook" by our closet.  Really just an area at the end of our rooom.  I put up a curtain and the crib is in there, along with my dresser for changing.  We have baskets all ready to go for clothes and diapers and blankets and stuff.  The baby will sleep on our co-sleeper and then, at some point, sitting up point I guess, move to the crib in his nook.  Then, someday, we will have to decide where he will go as we're out of rooms!

I just love that chair nintedork!  It's one I've admired before.  We are Ikea addicts.  Total addicts.  There are worse things though.  Right?

[dex_millie]

We live in a 2 bdrm apt. and the small bedroom DH uses it as an excersing room, so it has bench, weights and an eleptical in it. So right now all are kids (DS who is 4 and DD who is 20months) sleep with us ( I want that to change for the next apartment we move to, which might be around June). I just have a pack and play from DS birth but need to get the bassinet and changing pad for it, I have no idea where it could have gone. I just need something to put the baby in to protect him/her from the other two.

Also for some reason I can never sleep in my bed for the first 2 months. I always end up in the living room because of the continous nightly wakings. I was thinking to get a lazy boy chair so I can relax and sleep in. Other than that I need some dressers.

Right now all of us sleep on a very heavy thick sleeping bag on the floor that is equal in size to a king bed. Hopefully in the summer we can get the first 2 kids in there own room.

[carriebft]

Amby bed in our room for first 6-8 months and then crib in guest room until ready for big kid bed (around 2.5) then its off to room sharing with the other kiddos! (unless we move)

I have a drawer in my dresser with the 0-3 baby clothes and the 3-6 in the drawer under the crib ready to go when we need them.

[ComplexOphelia]

We still have an Amby, but they never sent us the repair kit after it was recalled!  Now we're looking for a new co-sleeper, which totally stinks.
 

Originally Posted by carriebft 

Amby bed in our room for first 6-8 months and then crib in guest room until ready for big kid bed (around 2.5) then its off to room sharing with the other kiddos! (unless we move)

I have a drawer in my dresser with the 0-3 baby clothes and the 3-6 in the drawer under the crib ready to go when we need them.

[smeep]

Originally Posted by nintendork 

See I was wondering about baby powder, cause I see it at the store but I don't have any friends who use it.  We have a changing pad with a few different washable covers.  We plan to CD after the first couple of weeks once we get the hang of this whole baby thing, or at least enough of it to be conscious.  A friend suggested we use cloth wipes and a cloth pail liner so we can just throw the whole thing in the wash and not have to pick out trash.  

Seriously. I think I used the baby powder once or twice when I FIRST switched to CDs because, at the time, I didn't know they were so awesome now so I was using terrible Gerber prefolds, pins and the vinyl pants. The vinyl pants meant there was no "breathing" allowed and poor baby would be soaked. Once we got better ones it was no problem. I've actually used it for myself more often. 

Yeah, the cloth wipes suggestion is a good one, IMO. It was so much easier once I started using cloth wipes. I just tossed them in the diaper, tossed it in the pail and a couple times a week just dumped it all in the wash. Before that I would have to pick out the disposable wipes and then still find them sometimes in the washer or dryer, which was annoying.
 

[sweeteleanor]

See, I used disposable wipes for poops and cloth for pee.  Well, after she started solids.  Before that cloth are easier for sure.

[lyterae]

I think I'm going to have DH side-car the crib, all of the baby "stuff" is in my closet. There is a set of stackable drawers with clothes, a rubbermaid bin with the  blankets, etc.. The baby clothes that are gender specific are in the basement boxed up according to size, so that all DH will need to do is go and grab the box labeled either girl or boy for 0-3 or 3-6 , etc.. I just don't have room upstairs for any of that.

[OkiMom]

In our diaper area I have diaper cream (theres only a few types that the girls could use and they all had to be ordered online so waiting until they had a rash and getting the cream wouldn't work for us), wipes, diapers, burp clothes, some hand sanitizing sheets (for friends who change the baby cause washing hands was to hard last time), wash clothes and lotion.. The lotion is for me though since my hands have been drying out and it just happens to be a convenient place to store it that the girls won't get into. I also have changes of clothes and blankets there since my kids love to pee/poop out of their diapers, I figure this one will be the same way. Its easier not to have to get up in the middle of the night and go into the other room to get an outfit change and I won't put the baby back into an outfit thats wet or poopy.

Ive never used baby powder.. I don't even know anyone who has except my father when I was a kid. He was shocked and dismayed when he realized I wasn't using baby powder on my oldest.

[nintendork]

The hand sanitizer and lotion are a great idea!

[Cujobunny]

We have a small (around 800sq ft) house as well, but 3 bdrms, so the 2 kids rooms are tiny. Right now the set up is bassinettte in our room (which is quite large actually) although I most likely will cosleep it's good to have a backup. Under the bassinette are 2 large baskets with prefolds in one & fitteds & covers in the other. The cloth wipes are just on top of one pile & theres some sposies in there too for the first few days.

Baby's clothes are in dd's room- she has a closet with a nifty organizer in it so she has the bottom 2 racks and baby has the top rack with sleepers & gowns on it. Onesies are folded on a shelf in that closet. Under her bed are storage bins that have the little outifts but I figure most of the time for the first few months he'll be in sleepers anyway. I only have 0-3 months out for now, but I have clothes up to sz 6 in my basement all sorted by size so when a kid grows out of their current size I can easily grab the bin & swap them out.

I used an organizer like this from IKEA for diapers when dd was a baby I'll probably get a couple more. They don't take up much space but give a lot more storage- actually I have seen some at the dollar store that are 3 compartments long & I could stick some in corners of my house & put whatever in there.

Anyway, that's the setup for now, we will revisit as the baby gets bigger & depending on what he's like - strict cosleeper, or crib in our room, eventually bunk beds in ds' room probably...

[carriebft]

I got my repair kit a while back (though we never had tilting issues anyway and have used it for three kids!). I will use the repair thing though as an extra precaution. did you try calling them?
 

Originally Posted by ComplexOphelia 

We still have an Amby, but they never sent us the repair kit after it was recalled!  Now we're looking for a new co-sleeper, which totally stinks.
 

Originally Posted by carriebft 

Amby bed in our room for first 6-8 months and then crib in guest room until ready for big kid bed (around 2.5) then its off to room sharing with the other kiddos! (unless we move)

I have a drawer in my dresser with the 0-3 baby clothes and the 3-6 in the drawer under the crib ready to go when we need them.

 

[carriebft]

YOu have to sign up for the kit on the website iirc...it is just a plastic tube with a pin that holds the thing in place.

[ComplexOphelia]

We never had any issues using it with DS, but now I'm nervous to use it without the repair kit.  We did email and call at the time of the recall and didn't hear anything, so I'll try again now.  I'd love to not have to buy a new co-sleeper, and we loved using the Amby! 

Originally Posted by carriebft 

YOu have to sign up for the kit on the website iirc...it is just a plastic tube with a pin that holds the thing in place.

[aidenn]

We fall pretty heavily under minimalist.  We had a pack 'n play for DD when she was little, but she rarely slept in it and never played in it, so we sold it.  We cosleep on a queen and a full pushed together on the floor (we live in a 970 square foot house, but it's 2b/2ba, so the bedrooms are good-sized!).  DD sleeps between DH and I so she can snuggle with whomever is currently in favor.  The other bedroom is currently more of a playroom with bookshelves of toys and the like.  We figure we'll buy them a Kura bunk bed from Ikea in about a year, so if cosleeping gets too crowded, we have other options.

I organize their clothes like smeep does - we have a dresser that was mine when I was a baby with 4 small drawers, two big ones, and a kids closet.  They share the closet for fancy hanging-up clothes, and they each get two small drawers (one for tops and one for bottoms of their current size).  One big drawer is divided in half for bath towels and pajamas.  The other big drawer is divided in half for "next size clothes" for each kid.  We also have a big tote in the garage for each child with storage bags for each size of clothes in each, for what they'll grow into.  We buy 90% of their clothes at thrift shops, so we buy quality items in sizes that could fit them in the next 3 years and just put them in the storage bins.

We do diaper changes on one side of the bed, with a 18"x18" cloth tote holding diapers and wipes and the wetbag and accessories organized in Ikea drawer organizers.  I may have to add another tote now that the kids are both in diapers though.  We'll see.

[Twinklefae]

Also near the change table, I keep pins/snappis, baby towels, receiving blankets, diaper cream, cloth wipes (we use baby facecloths - they are cheap, everyone buys them for you at a shower and they work great) peri bottle for water - I'd be really leery of solutions, they made my kid break out something terrible.  That's about it.  When he got older I kept the BB little potty on the floor next to it, since he peed every time I took off his diaper anyway.

I'll have to take a pic once we get the crib dressed - the room looks really cute right now!