Quote:
Originally Posted by Canada 02
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my wife is 6 months pregnant with our first. Plenty of good info in this thread, but I have a question not yet answered here.
We are trying to get as much used stuff from friends and family to save money.
We got a used crib from a friend, which has drop-sides. Apparently, all drop-side cribs are now banned for safety issues. However, after assembling the crib, I don't see any obvious way the drop-sides can fail.
Anyone have experience with drop-side cribs? Do you find lowering the side of the crib to be a useful feature? If not, I don't think it would be to hard to rig something together to prevent the sides from ever dropping, accidentally or otherwise.
We also got a used traveler system (car seat and stroller). The previous owner has a one year old who has outgrown the weight limit, so kindly gave it to us. The baby class at our hospital recommended to never use a used car seat, but I think that a bit extreme. The car seat has an expiration date for 3 years from now. It also hasn't been recalled. Thoughts? I think it's safe to use, but maybe there are issues I haven't thought of.
Other opinions:
1. glass bottles vs plastic,
2. cloth diapers vs disposable,
3. Bob jogging strollers look amazing, but will you realistically have time or even want to go jogging when you have a baby?
4. what are must haves for the baby versus frivolous stuff that looks cool, but is really a waste of money? Play yard, bassinet, baby monitor, etc
5. is lamaze class helpful?
tia
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The drop side crib issue was basically from people who improperly installed the rails, ending up breaking them. You should be able to do a visual inspection and check to see if you can see any problems. You might be able to get a kit from the manufacturer to convert the crib into a fixed side crib.
The car seat should be fine, up until the expiry date at least (and likely much longer). In reality, these items only have expiry dates to limit the liabilty of the manufacturer in case something does go wrong. If the car seat is from someone you know, I would have no hesitations about using it.
We went with plastic bottles with drop ins, I can't really compare since I never used glass bottles. Everything is BPA free now.
Cloth diapers are better for the environment and your wallet, but they are a lot of work. If you do use cloth diapers, use disposable liners.
You probably don't need both a bassinet and a play yard. We just used our play yard for a bassinet when our kids were first born. We never really used a baby monitor.
As long as your kids is growing and eating fine, after the first month, let them sleep through the night as much as they want. Don't wake them up to feed, that just prolongs your tired insanity stage during the first couple months.
The nurses will say don't feed them solids until 6 months, but if your child is feeding like crazy and not sleeping very well through the night due to hungriness, start feed them some solids, ramp up slowly though.
Coffeemate is not a cheap substitute for baby formula.
A prenatal class will probably be benefical, just so that you will understand what will go on a little bit better, and will be a bit more prepared for the mayhem that will come soon. There still will be things that you will be unsure of, but the number will still be less.