Green Family Footprints: Knowing what you need..

How do you know how much clothing you need?

How do you you know what you need full stop?

This is something I have struggled with, I've seen so many lists of what to buy. what one person recomends the next person says is a waste of money. A long with that I've asked people what I need and they come up with a totally different list to the ones you see in Magazines or online.

This just totally confuses a first time mummy to be.

So what have I done? I've tried to cover all areas of clothing, even though people tell you not to buy so much clothing because people will buy you lots once baby is here, but how do I know they will? I can not rely on other people to get the basics for my baby, plus how can you not buy too many when you see so many cute clothes when you are out and about? You don't even have to be out specifically baby shopping and you could spot something, believe me I know as this is how Baby Green's wardrobe has grown!

As you are aware Baby Green is due in January and being in England one thing we cannot predict is the weather forecast, no matter how much we love talking about it! Therefore we have bought clothing to try and cater for most weather types.

I've also tried to get an array of sizes, so we have a mix of Newborn and 0-3months items of clothing:

19x Short sleeve bodysuits
11x Long sleeve bodysuits
14x Sleep suits
8x t-shirts
12x leggings
4x outfits/dresses
3x Jumpers/Cardigans
2x fleecy all in ones
2x coats
13x socks
4x tights
3x booties
4x Winter hats
1x Snowsuit
5x scratch mittens

So I think we really have the basics of clothing covered for the first 3 months, I'm sure we will find that we need more of one thing, and have too much of another. I'm sure we could arrange a few fashions shows to ensure she gets wear out of all her clothes.

We have a good few items of clothing in 3-6 months too.

Again its confusing knowing what other things you need for your baby,such as mosses basket/cot, bottles, bedding etc.

We have decided that Baby Green will sleep in the mosses basket that will be right next to our bed for the first few months and go from there to see when she is ready to go into her cot in her room. We managed to pick up a 2nd hand Mosses basket from a local for sale site for £10 and this included the stand and blanket too, at such a bargain it was something we couldn't turn down. We also have opted for Baby Green to sleep in Sleeping bags so have 3x 2.5 tog sleeping bags.

I do plan to Breast feed if possible, but after a few weeks I plan to combi feed so James gets the chance to bond with Baby Green too as I believe this is great time to be able to bond with your child.

So we went and ordered the Tommee Tippee Complete Starter Kit and that pretty much covers you for all that you will need to start you off, I am aware that she may not take to the Tommee Tippee bottles but I've herd such good reviews about them and seen how popular they are and that helped with making our choice of what to go for. We also got the Tommee Tippee Manual Breast Pump to start with and see how we go with Breast feeding/expressing.

While on the subject of Tommee Tippee we also got the Healthcare Kit and Soothers, so as you can see they really are a very popular choice for us.

We have a couple of moses basket and cot bed sets, blankets, sheets etc so think we have covered ourselves when coming to bedding and keeping her warm.

I don't know how, but we have managed to stock up well and truly on Muslin Squares (15), Burping cloths (5) and Bibs (25) so I think we won't have to buy any of those for a very long time.

Other things we have covered are the Pram, Car seat, Baby Monitors, Bath thermometer, bedroom thermometer, towels, cloths, changing mat, toiletries such as cotton wool balls and water wipes, and plenty of teddies, a few comforters and Sophie the Giraffe.

I'm pretty sure thats everything, I've more than likely forgotton to add something but Im pretty sure we have everything we need or what we haven't got is on my list of things to get: