Baby Shower/Registry

[bikruca]

*sigh*

I'm not sure what to do..

I know my mom/friend are planning on throwing me a shower, and my mom has asked me if I am planning on starting a registry.

I have been to Sears and Babys R Us and literally there was NOTHING I wanted..

lol

I guess there is stuff I need but I would so rather buy it online from work at home moms.. because it will be better quaility anyways!!!

Plus those stores mark everything up so much!

*sigh* plus I really want stuff that supports my desire to do "attached parenting"/cloth diapering/babywearing/co sleeping/ breastfeeding


what do I need?? I have no clue!

The other thing is I've had so many people donate clothes to me I absolutely do NOT need any clothes.. but i have a feeling if I don't have a registry thats what most people will go for KWIM?

Brian and I are struggiling a bit financially, so it would be nice to get some help with the baby "stuff"

but I don't want a lot of "convienence items" (like I don't need a baby monitor this is a one bedroom apartment!!!)

SO it limits what my friends on smaller budgets could get anyways.. lol

I duno maybe I am overthinking this whole thing.. what I really wanna do is go on an online shopping spree I am tired of hearing "wait until after your shower!!!" (plus it's hard without any money lol!)

My dad asked what he could get us to help out.. and I just don't know what to tell him.. LOL

Thanks for letting me vent a little..

[roxy]

with ds1, i thought i needed everything, so i had a traditional shower at 8 mos pg. then he came along, and taught me AP! so when ds2 was due 7 yrs later, i just decided to skip the shower, knowing i wouldn't use half of what i got. but i have a wonderful mil, and when ds was 4 wks old, she had a welcome baby party for me. i tried to explain about registering on wewbsites instead of stores, but no one really got it. one friend got me tender care disposible diapers, but everything else was almost useless to me. so i sold it and bought what i wanted with the money! i was broke, split from dh while pg, so this worked for me. try making a list of what you want AP-style, and doing the on-line registries. and if your friends and family don't "get it", sell the junk on e-bay and buy what you really want!

[williamsmommy2002]

Well, from my experience nobody bought off the registry anyway. I did tell people what I needed. We needed more blankets at the time and we ended up with some very beautiful, handmade blankets. These are more special to me than anything that was on that registry. I think poeple buy clothes because it's easy. I would tell you to really think about what you need and come up with a list. Then figure out if anyone you know would be willing to buy online for you. If they are, you can give them a list of what you would like. If they would rather buy from a store, register at one for stuff you can and would use. Then if you get something you can't use, take it back and get cash/credit to buy what you need or E-bay it. Or you could tell people that you need help buying X item and could they contribute to that instead. People are going to get you what they want to get you. Really some of it you will use and some of it you won't. Not everyone will understand why you want/don't want certain items and it is better to accept them graciously and be appreciative that these people cared. Not everyone buys without listening.

[luvinmama]

I'm in the same boat. All we need for Ds#2 is diapers and maybe some infant toys. Since we're cloth diapering and I can't find any I like offline, I've been looking for a web page that has a registry. I'll pm you the address of one I just found that's great. It has slings, diapers, covers, and natural parenting stuff. I'm still looking for more, so let me know if you find any. Other than the $500 worth of items I registered for there, I think I'll just put a little slip in the invitation asking people to order diapers from WAHM sites (and list a few with generally what I want from each). Good luck to you. Let me know if you have other ideas too.

[happay]

Is there someplace available to you on the Internet where you could list the things that you really can use and the sites where those items can be found? Then people invited who are actually motivated enough to check a registry will hopefully check your site and see what you want.

[Jennifer H]

I've still found plenty of stuff at traditional baby stores. Don't just think about the newborn stage... think about later too! In the first couple of months, a few clothes, diapers, our arms and my breasts were the only essentials, but as they got older I did find some of the baby products were useful.

~ Although we don't use a stroller a lot, we do use it for long walks and in airports, malls, etc. (usually the stroller carries the stuff while we carry the baby).
~ All babies need carseats (and not just one... we have two convertibles... one for each car because they are not easy to install correctly and so we don't want to move them from car to car).
~ Will you use a highchair (not at the beginning, but think months down the line)? We have one, but I would actually opt for a booster instead (much more compact).
~ You could register for baby bath items (inexpensive and fun for people to buy), towels, washclothes, shampoo, baby wash, etc.
~ Do you have a baby first aid kit? We don't use a lot of medication, but I do like to have Baby Tylenol in the house in case of an unexpected fever (they always start at 3am) and although we tried for a long time to not use it, we had Gripe Water (which I saw at Babies R Us last week).
~ I was opposed to the swing until I had a baby that would only sleep in my arms or in the swing. I loved the option of pulling it into the bathroom while I showered. He also could swing and I could talk to him while I cooked (when it wasn't safe to be carrying him). I dragged it outside and he could swing while I planted flowers or did other work in the yard.
~ We also used the exersaucer the same way when he was too big for the swing.

Is your bed safe for co-sleeping? Do you need lighter weight blankets to make it so? We were able to have our babies in our actual bed, but my friend used the Arms Reach and loved it (her dh is significantly overweight and has sleep apnea and sleeps far too sound for a baby to sleep safely with them).

My family members went togther and three or four people would buy some of these bigger items for us.

[Amina Momma]

Hi ladies,

Did you/are you going to put where you registered on you shower invite or wait till they rsvp?

I also want to tell people that they could contribute towards a diper service fund. I am thinking while the baby is in a small to med size diper I will use a service so I have one less thing to do and so I don't have to spend $ on sm and med and lg.

I also want to throw a diper party for mom's who want to sell their out grown baby dipers.

I live in SF and did a search for all the second hand maternity and baby stores. It is so much fun to get the basics so I don't have to worry about what people give me. One thrift store has tons of baby clothes all .50 cents each! I am saving the easy stuff for a registry but mostly going for dipers.

[sweet tea]

I registered at Babiesrus.com and pottery barn

in my experience , I ususally get most all of it...and if you don't do a registry, you get a LOT of clothes.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/registry/UFOJOVXSETEY

Places like pottery barn and kids r us give you lil tickets to put in with the invites, but you could register here:

http://www.littlesproutsdiapers.com/gift_registry.htm

and put the link to your registry in the invites or make up lil tickets yourself on cardstock w/ your printer....asking for gift cert or items on the list.

lots of wahm sites have registries!

http://www.sunshinediapers.com/giftregistry.html

http://www.diapersafari.com/

HTH

[majazama]

I didn't have a shower with my first child, and probably not with this one either. But people in my family will ask me what I need.... so I told my partner ahead of time that if his mom asks what I need, direct her to fuzzibunz.com.... she went and looked at the site and told him she thought it was *rediculous* to spend that kind of money on cloth diapers. :.... I guess she's never seen righteousbaby.com :

Anyways, she made me out a cheque for 60$, which I am very grateful for, and I'm still trying to decide where to spend it. It's just so funny how she asked me what I needed, and decided, nope, you don't need that! Just my little vent to add to your thread.

[Amina Momma]

Anyways, she made me out a cheque for 60$, which I am very grateful for, and I'm still trying to decide where to spend it. [/QUOTE]

Sounds like you get to pick out your own patterns! Heck, design your own wool soaker and you can spend the whole thing in one pop! Then you can send her a pic with your thank you note.

[Snowbaby]

If people want to get you clothes, maybe you can ask that they get clothes for older baby (3-6mos, 6-9 mos, etc) .. this way you don't have a ton of newborn stuff that will only last a little bit and DH and you can save some $ on clothes as the baby grows.

Unfortunately, my relatives don't understand the concept of registering -- they think it's *rude* b/c you are asking for things : so they'll just get what they want to get, which I'm sure will include tons of bottles and such ..... but I'm planning on breastfeeding. I'll just let them bring what they want and sell what's useless to get something else.

I've also been told to wait till after the shower to shop -- but, honestly, I've been planning on taking advantage of Memorial Weekend sales and won't let that go by. So, I'll just keep receipts in case i need to return anything. I very much doubt I'll get any of the real essentials at my shower - just cutesey stuff, which is nice too.

[ebethmom]

With ds, our first child, our friends threw FOUR showers for us. Wow, that was a lot of stuff. He was well dressed for an entire year, and we had enough gift cards to buy a Pump In Style.

Now that we're expecting #2, there really isn't anything at the big stores that appeals to us either. We do need some girl clothes, but not all that much.

There is a specialty store closeby - it's a breastfeeding store that carries some other stuff. We really want a co-sleeper, and they carry those. So I am going to ask for gift certificates to that store.

I'm thinking of making a wish list and giving it to the person who is organizing the shower. I don't think that many of our older church members shop online, but I'm going to include my naturalbabies.com diaper stuff. I also want a Lands' End diaper bag - hopefully it won't fall apart like every other diaper bag I've had.

[Foobar]

Here's a site for y'all

http://www.wishcentral.com/

Try this. Wish central allows you to post wish list items from anywhere on the web. Then you send out the link to your family and they can reserve what they want to buy for you.
They click the links and you get to support WAHM businesses and get what YOU want.

My friend is using this for her shower and has TONS of diapers on there. It looks great and everyone knows what she wants (and she got to pick the patterns too).

Good luck!