When I was pregnant with my first child I remember buying pretty much every product there was. Many of them stayed in the box as I never used them. Even with my third child I still never opened them, yet they were considered essential items that everyone needs. I remember looking at the number of clothes my first daughter had, that was then passed on to my second and some of them even passed on to my third [Yes he was a boy] and thinking my daughter has so much stuff. A lot of it was just that, stuff. Stuff that took up room and stuff I just didn’t use.
Baby socks / Baby boots
Whoever invented baby socks clearly didn’t even have kids. The majority of the time a baby will manage to kick off a sock and lose it. You will be forever putting them back on again or looking for said baby socks. Most babies also tend to spend the majority of time in baby grows. Trust me it is so much easier to have a baby in a baby grow. Babygrows have inbuilt feet in them, which also negates the need for baby socks.
Muslin squares
Now for some people, although I will admit I have only ever met a handful, Muslin squares seem really useful. Burping a baby over your shoulder often ends up with sick dribbling down your shoulder and the muslin square should be there to stop that from happening. Only with my three children it never did. It would either be so much that it went down my back anyways, it would leak through and be on my shoulder or I could never find it when i needed it so became useless.
Clothes
I don’t mean all clothes but I do mean outfits. Newborns go through that many outfit changes in a day that baby grows are just so much easier. I had some nicer baby grows for day time and some plain ones for night time, not that a newborn understands day and night, but it made me feel better anyway. Also, people, I found, who want to buy gifts tend to buy clothes so you tend to end up with many items that baby only wear once. Not to mention how fast babies grow in the first six months. Stick with baby grows, it is just so much easier.
Changing tables
With my second child and again with my third child I did not have a dedicated changing table like I did with my first. Yes, I had a changing mat, in fact, I had two. One was kept downstairs and upstairs. I had a basket with a few nappies and a packet of wipes in and that was all that I needed. If the baby had a bad accident then it was upstairs to the bath. The changing table became one of those redundant items that actually was a rather expensive item and was simply not needed.
My final piece of advice is to try for a while before you bulk buy. Babies grow very quickly in the first few months so bulk buying on items such as nappies can actually turn out to be an inconvenience. I found cloth nappies worked great with two of my children but with one of them they just wouldn't work well at all. I found one of my children was extremely allergic to a certain baby brand and so if I had bought several bottles of their shampoo, bath bubbles and moisturiser I would have had a lot of waste.
