I cannot believe how much "crap" you have to buy when you have an infant. The amount of stuff marketed to new parents is overwhelming. I am pretty sure most of the stuff did not even exist when I was a baby. Some of it, like car seats, are definitely an improvement, but so much of seems unnecessary. It is quite a struggle to figure out what is important for your child's safety and what is overkill and marketing hype. Luckily we have the internet to help. Danika has done a lot of research and is also on some mom groups.
We had been discussing getting a swing for Graham, mostly it came down to if we really wanted to shell out over $100 and in the end Graham might not even like it. Well, shortly after discussing the swing, there was a post one of the mom groups from a mom who was giving away a swing. It was one of the models Danika's research showed was safe, so Danika emailed the mom and we now have a swing for Graham to try once he is a bit older.
We are using a car seat the Zoë and Sol both used, but now that Adria and Jeremy are expecting another in September, we knew we would need to return it before Graham had outgrown it. This is another item Danika and I discussed. Kids go through many different phases of car seats and there are many different styles each with their own list of pros and cons. They all work for a range of weights and sizes, so we were trying to figure out what would work best for a four month old. We decided we would wait a bit longer to see if the advantages of having the infant car seat would still be useful when we need to return Adria and Jeremy's seat. Well, a few minutes after the swing was posted someone posted the same model car seat we were borrowing (which is a really good seat) for half price. It was new in the box and the owners had ended up with two. Danika emailed that mom and we now also have our very own car seat.
I sure hope we can continue to find second hand gear, since it saves us money but also helps the planet.
