Practical vs. Beautiful in Baby Purchases

I have a son who is 16 months old, and I have spent a ton of money on him. We've been through a mountain of bottles, toys, clothes, and all sorts of accessories. I have learned one simple lesson. Never buy anything which does not seem incredibly practical.

A good anecdote is the crib. We have a very nice crib made by some french company, whose instructions are in french. When it came time to lower the crib, it took approximately four hours to loosen bolts, re-align the frame, and then re-tighten bolts with an Allen wrench. Some other cribs can be lowered with very simple latches. But we chose beauty over practicality. Additionally, we have bumpers in our crib, which are nice, but impossible to wash. They need to be washed from time to time, due to vomit, or stains or who even knows. But they are super bulky. I wanted to buy wonder bumpers http://www.gomamagodesigns.com/wonder-bumpers, which prevent suffocation and if they need to be cleaned, can be washed very easily. But our crib could not accommodate wonder bumpers. Take note, that the baby bargain book http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Bargains-Secrets-furniture-maternity/dp/1889392405 will recommend a 99 dollar ikea crib, which you can dress up however you want. But no, we have wasted money and time.

Another place to be super practical is clothes. My kid has a large head, so any kind of clothes with a tight head opening can be a real pain in the butt to put on. But anything which buttons or fastens up the middle is a dream. If your child is in the top 50% for head size, this may be an important factor for you. Remember, with most baby clothes, there is a yelling, screaming, human doing their very best to avoid putting on whatever you want him or her to wear. So, if you want to save yourself tons of headaches, buy clothes with fasteners and not with an army of buttons. But the goal is to get the child dressed, and if you are too exhausted from trying to dress the child, then you don't want to go show them off anyway. Also, whatever you buy is going to have to stand up to a ton of washing, with extra rinsing. Don't buy anything frilly or delicate, because it'll get torn to shreds.

A final thought is toys. There are tons of toys out there, and kids go through them super fast.  Instead of buying toys outright, without knowing whether or not your baby will be interested in them, look into subscribing to http://babyplays.com/. If your child loves the toy, go buy it. But if he or she seems to ignore it and not be interested, then you may have saved yourself a fair bit of money. You could waste hundreds or thousands of dollars on toys, and have maybe a 50% success rate. This is an option to try before you buy.

Think about the goals behind these purchases. Envision the whole picture. It is very easy to waste money in this realm, but by asking a ton of questions, and finding the products which fit your individual needs, not just whimsical excitements, can save you a lot of cash, frustration, and energy.

P.S.: If you would like to know the questions my wife and I have learned through the process, contact me privately.