Gearing Up For Baby #2

We’re about 6 weeks away from the due date. It's a girl! At that point in time, we’ll be playing man-to-man defense.

Two parents.

Two kids.

The family dynamics will certainly change and so will the family budget. This week I wanted to discuss the few things we need to purchase as we anticipate the arrival of our daughter. I’ll be honest though, I was surprised by the amount of stuff that we used for our son that we will be able to reuse with our daughter. Between reusing items and borrowing/trading with friends, the list below is much shorter than I anticipated when 7 months ago when we found out we were expecting.

Top 3 Things We Needed to Buy for Baby 2

1.       Newborn Diapers

Since day one with our son, we’ve decided to use cloth diapers as much as possible. The problem is newborns are a little too small for some of them. We decided to stock up on diapers at Zehrs during their “No Tax” sale to save a few dollars. We spent about $25/box.

2.       Newborn Onesies

We were very lucky to receive a lot of hand-me-downs from friends and family. Most of the cloths, however, were for the 3-6 months age. We play to hit up a used baby store like Once Upon a Child to stock up on some used onesies. We’ve budgeted about $25-$35 for this.

3.       Bassinet

The sleeping situations will be interesting as we’ll now have a toddler who still likes to sleep in our bed and a newborn. Steph has decided she wants a bassinet. We looked at retail prices, then began to shop Kijiji to find a used one. We got a great deal on a slightly used one for $150.

So, overall, we’ve spent about $200 to prepare for baby two. The initial outlay and expenses, as I mentioned are much smaller than I initially anticipated. Through planning, we saved a lot of stuff from Baby one to reuse and received quite a bit of hand-me-downs.

We’re getting pretty excited as we approach the due date!

*Last minute edit* I had some Facebook followers guess what made the list. One popular guess was a double baby stroller. This is something that Steph and I have discussed, but don't think we'll need (or at least not need for another 3 months). Steph and I are big fans of baby wearing, so for year 1, we plan to wear our daughter and use the stroller for Elliott, if needed. We'll reassess as we go, but for now, we're not going to get one.