I had always planned to keep all of the baby bits and pieces that I had accumulated for use if (or when!) our family grows again. However, I feel like our house is being taken over by baby stuff!Lara is seven months old this week and we already have 5 cardboard boxes of clothes that she has grown out of, a Moses basket, a play gym, a crib, shed-loads of breastfeeding equipment , a complete set of small reusable nappies and a car seat. To top it off, I have bags full of maternity clothes, nursing bras and tops, a birthing ball, a TENS machine... the list is endless. All of these things are now sitting, unloved, in our hallway or stashed out of sight in our loft. If it goes on at this rate, we will run out of space in our house in about.... err... tomorrow.
The baby dump!
We don't have a large house - you'll note that one of my goals for 2010 is to find a bigger one! I'm sure that if we ever actually got around to sorting out our loft space (do we really need offcuts of carpet for each room of the house?) then we could find space for all of Lara's cast-offs. The more stuff we secrete in the loft, the more stuff we'll have to move later in the year when we relocate – can I be bothered with the hassle? Is it really worth it? Will I really be frugal (or selfish) enough not to buy new clothes, toys, bottles and whatnot the second time around? Will I want to buy clothes especially for the newbie? Or would I be happy dressing them purely in Lara's hand-me-downs? What if future family members are male? Aaaaargh!
I'm sure that if I keep all of the baby bits then I will save myself a whole load of cash. My crib is fantastic and it would seem such a shame to get rid of it, only to have to buy (or source) a new one a year or two down the line. The baby bath (barely used – read why here) takes up so much space but it is guaranteed that if I get rid of it, I'll regret it! The play gym is in full working order; it was a gift from my colleagues and it would be wrong to get rid of it, wouldn't it? And the clothes... ah, the clothes... some of them are barely worn, they're just too good to throw out. I have identified only one or two things I am 100% happy to get rid of.
My other option is to start the time-consuming process of listing all of the items on ebay and freecycling anything that won't make me rich! I guess that way I would at least be (a) making money to spend on new clothes and toys for Lara and (b) helping out people who need the baby stuff more than I currently do.
So, answer me this:-
- Should I store or should I sell/donate?
- Will I really use the stuff I keep ever again?
- What would you keep? And what would you throw out?
- Have you stored baby stuff and used it? Or have you stored it and then found it useless?
