Some of my biggest goals in life currently are to save money and to save space in my 1,327 square foot (gross living area) home. Here’s some stuff I don’t have or store most of the time or just never needed.
Some of this stuff costs a lot of money, and it floors me when broke people go further into debt (in addition to their freaking welfare and food stamps) to purchase stupid baby equipment at full price. As if the baby will care! Trust me, your kid cares a lot more that you were AROUND and that you were, I don’t know, maybe, LOVING and nurturing and caring.
High chair takes up too much space in my house, even if it folds up. I used one religiously for my first 4 kids as a feeding space AND as a place to park the baby. But Sam wasn’t havin’ it, so we put it back in the basement. We fed him on our laps or he stood in a chair (supervised, of course). Recently I got him a baby seat that straps onto a chair for $5 at a thrift store.
Boppy … unless you get this as a gift, just use pillows. I loved it with my first 3 kids until my first two pulled it apart tug-of-war style. I was too cheap and lazy to buy another so I just used pillows and built up my arm muscles or rested my arm on my Yoga-posed leg (just kidding!) when pillows weren’t available.
Playpen. My mom always says I needed one of these, and Lord knows enough people gave me their used “play yards.” But I was always holding my babies or else parking them in a stationary walker (is that an oxymoron or what?!) or in the bouncy seat. If they were on the floor, I was watching closely and yelling at my other kids to NOT STEP ON THE BABY OR I WILL STEP ON YOU.
Wipes warmer. Use the body heat on your hand, moron. My kids will probably not bring up in therapy that I wiped their butts with cold wipes in the middle of winter.
Shoes. Please don’t get me started. Moms, you know these are only for decoration and serve no purpose, kinda like a spleen or appendix.
A crib. We’ll visit this one in the next post.
