Hi Ya!
I'm Jen, I'm due in January (end of) with our first baby. I'm a vegan that cooks everything from scratch and am very considerate of waste and by-products from daily living that can be recycled or just not even needed in the first place. Right now, I work full-time and my husband, who was just laid off, is starting a new temp job that will take him through December. Hopefully, he'll have an electrical apprenticeship to start in January that is a five-year program. At that point, we will probably go down to one income to let me stay home with baby. We are hoping to go down to one car at that time as well, but we'll see.
I have been involved on another website's board with other mommas who share my 'birth month' and have been profoundly disappointed in so many of the attitudes I've seen displayed. There are people on the board who think that they should get EVERYTHING they "need" at the baby shower and are getting stressed about having to buy STUFF. They are registering for $200 crib sets and $400 travel systems and checking their registries and venting about how no one is getting anything that they wanted.
Where has pure gratitude gone? How did this 'entitlement' that people feel to get THINGS enter the picture? I just don't understand why people think that they NEED everything for their baby.
Here's my list of what I got and where I got it and how much I paid.
Crib with newer mattress: $60 second-hand store (gave them desc of what I wanted, told them to call, 3 days later, had it)
Playpen, older, but clean: $5 garage sale
Dresser, older, needs paint job: free, came w/ DH when I married him
20 onesies (diff. sizes), 15 gender-neutral outfits (mostly newborn & 3-6 size), 8 prs socks, 6 burping clothes, 2 bibs, 6 recieving blankets: $37 garage sales over 2 weeks
25 Cloth diapers: free, my mom made them from flannel, just like the ones I had as a baby.
4 soft washclothes: free, again mom-made
6 diaper covers: $50, ordered from babyworks.com
used glider: $15 garage sale
We are buying a new car seat, a sling, and some of the smaller items (ie: thermometer, sheets, etc).
There are several people at work that are knitting baby blankets for me. We decided against getting a stroller b/c its too bulky and it's just not NECESSARY for the newborn in the middle of winter. I will be getting a backpack as a 'diaper bag'. I am breastfeeding exclusively. The 'nursery' is our spare room, we'll paint it and the crib and dresser and stick them in there. Our child doesn't need all the gizmos and gadgets out there.
When I got pregnant, the first thing I started budgeting for was for these things. I will not depend on other people to get what I tell them to get from a registry, that takes all the fun out of buying presents.
Am I totally out of line for believing this way? Is there anybody out there like me? I feel like it's very hard to fit in on that board b/c of those sorts of posts, along with the vents on DH posts and the lack of common sense posts.
Looking forward to answers, sorry if I offended anyone first time out.
Jen D.
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I'm Jen, I'm due in January (end of) with our first baby. I'm a vegan that cooks everything from scratch and am very considerate of waste and by-products from daily living that can be recycled or just not even needed in the first place. Right now, I work full-time and my husband, who was just laid off, is starting a new temp job that will take him through December. Hopefully, he'll have an electrical apprenticeship to start in January that is a five-year program. At that point, we will probably go down to one income to let me stay home with baby. We are hoping to go down to one car at that time as well, but we'll see.
I have been involved on another website's board with other mommas who share my 'birth month' and have been profoundly disappointed in so many of the attitudes I've seen displayed. There are people on the board who think that they should get EVERYTHING they "need" at the baby shower and are getting stressed about having to buy STUFF. They are registering for $200 crib sets and $400 travel systems and checking their registries and venting about how no one is getting anything that they wanted.
Where has pure gratitude gone? How did this 'entitlement' that people feel to get THINGS enter the picture? I just don't understand why people think that they NEED everything for their baby.
Here's my list of what I got and where I got it and how much I paid.
Crib with newer mattress: $60 second-hand store (gave them desc of what I wanted, told them to call, 3 days later, had it)
Playpen, older, but clean: $5 garage sale
Dresser, older, needs paint job: free, came w/ DH when I married him
20 onesies (diff. sizes), 15 gender-neutral outfits (mostly newborn & 3-6 size), 8 prs socks, 6 burping clothes, 2 bibs, 6 recieving blankets: $37 garage sales over 2 weeks
25 Cloth diapers: free, my mom made them from flannel, just like the ones I had as a baby.
4 soft washclothes: free, again mom-made
6 diaper covers: $50, ordered from babyworks.com
used glider: $15 garage sale
We are buying a new car seat, a sling, and some of the smaller items (ie: thermometer, sheets, etc).
There are several people at work that are knitting baby blankets for me. We decided against getting a stroller b/c its too bulky and it's just not NECESSARY for the newborn in the middle of winter. I will be getting a backpack as a 'diaper bag'. I am breastfeeding exclusively. The 'nursery' is our spare room, we'll paint it and the crib and dresser and stick them in there. Our child doesn't need all the gizmos and gadgets out there.
When I got pregnant, the first thing I started budgeting for was for these things. I will not depend on other people to get what I tell them to get from a registry, that takes all the fun out of buying presents.
Am I totally out of line for believing this way? Is there anybody out there like me? I feel like it's very hard to fit in on that board b/c of those sorts of posts, along with the vents on DH posts and the lack of common sense posts.
Looking forward to answers, sorry if I offended anyone first time out.
Jen D.
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