So currently J and I are tackling the minefield of baby shopping.
Quite frankly I’m lost already underneath the mire of travel systems, carrycots, cot-beds and breast pumps.
Today I went for a walk and of course I ended up in the nursery section of two different retailers staring blankly at the prices wondering a) how we can afford all of this stuff and b) what do those prices include?
When I went in I pulled the one down that I thought looked nice and as soon as my hands hit the handle I felt something strange, like it felt right.
I never thought I would feel this way about the whole process but that’s probably where the shopping side of it stops being fun.
To be fair we know a lot about what we need but it’s deciding which versions of each thing we should get. For example, there are so many variations of pram. Do we go with one that has a carrycot? Should it be compatible with a car seat or do we buy that separately? Do we pay a bit more for a brand that’s going to last us a bit longer? And that’s just prams.
There’s a thing called a Rock-it. It’s shaped like a rocket (cute I know) and it actually rocks your baby’s pram. Now call me old fashioned but I look forward to rocking my little one off to sleep. There’s surely something heroic in getting your baby off to sleep. Heroic and much needed so I keep getting told.
That’s not considering car seats, cots, accessories, toys and so much more. Now they even have car seats that lie down completely, is that something we need as we often have a two-and-a-half-hour journey to the in-laws (babies aren’t recommended in a traditional car seat for more than this.)
The problem is we are very meticulous with everything we do and especially those things where a large amount of money is being put down (I’m a bit of a tight-arse as it is.)
We still want to pay a bit more if it’s going to last and it’s going to keep our baby safe. This is the crux of our problem though, we could have easily have bought all the essentials by now but we keep flip-flopping on things.
A minute in my head would go something like this: “I really like the look of this (insert travel system name here.) This gives us everything we need.” “Oo, but it’s quite expensive, and that doesn’t include the carrycot, or the footmuff (not a weird fetish), and it’s going to be cold when the baby arrives at the end of November.” “But we need to pay premium of we want our baby to be safe (and look cool.)” and so on and so on, it’s a never-ending cycle.
When we go and do our research into these things we are so awful. We could literally read 100 positive reviews but that one negative review will be enough for us to be put off. That is until one of us can convince the other that each parent using it will be different.
We’re not asking for a lot. All we want is a pram that includes a carrycot and can then be used forward and rear-facing and can be used as a car seat – which is both ISOFIX and non-ISOFIX compatible. See, not that much to ask is it?