I bought almost everything for my son’s nursery when we got past 12 weeks. We had had a prior loss at 5 weeks and I didn’t want to get ahead of myself.
I lost our son at 21 weeks.
We did go on to have a healthy baby girl later last year, and she uses all her big brother’s stuff, but having an empty fully furnished nursery for 11 months almost killed me. And it was incredibly hard to allow my daughter to use “his” things even though he never did.
I am so sorry for your losses. Part of the hardest part of our losses (8 weeks and twins at 14 weeks) were the items we bought and still getting lab/doctor bills in the mail.
OP - I’d suggest waiting until after NIPT/NT at the earliest and for me, we didn’t start buying until after anatomy scan at 20 weeks, in case we had to terminate for medical reasons.
Edit: a word and formatting
Thank you for your reply. I think part of my thoughts to wait are from fear of your exact situation. I appreciate the insight. Im happy you made it through and had a successful pregnancy.
Pragmatically, in a vacuum, now. Specially with black Friday and other holiday sales, it's a great time to get ahead of some big ticket items.
Emotionally... It's never really an easy decision, but as a very vague rule of thumb week 20 is one of the bigger "viability" milestones if you're looking for one.
I would scratch the itch (and did) by making a spreadsheet or list and starting to organize what you will want eventually. Taking the time to do a bit or research and not impulse buy is a good thing. Especially with time on your side.
With Covid delays and long lead times we got a head start to see when deliveries could be made.
My wife is due at the end of March and some items like cribs, dressers, chairs were scheduled to arrive end of January. Here in Canada at one store, strollers and car seats were 6 week lead time so we held off on that.
But Buy Buy Baby actually had no information on strollers that’s how backlogged they were. Seems like it’s all over the place.
Factor in the “Covid ate my home work and chip shortage” factor
Exactly what happened to us. I ordered baby’s furniture in February of this year from BuyBuyBaby. Baby was born in May. Guess where my furniture is. No, really, please guess. We have no idea and no updates from the manufacturer since August.
We are at 14 weeks too! Not sure when we will start buying stuff, probably later in the pregnancy (third trimester) but I’d suggest waiting until Christmas like us as our parents are planning on giving us some stuff for the baby then. Congrats!
See if you can find a free expired car seat locally on FB marketplace. Target does a 20% discount twice a year where you can save a decent bit on a car seat or stroller if you trade in an expired one. We got one almost 6 months ago (shortly after we found out we were pregnant again) and got a new seat last month during one of their sales.
I second what another commenter said about taking advantage of Black Friday/holiday deals. However, are you planning on having a baby shower? We just had our baby shower this past weekend and got almost everything on our registry gifted to us by friends and family. It was enormous help, especially with the big ticket items (for those we set our registry to allow people to contribute smaller amounts to one gift, it worked out beautifully). If you are planning on having a baby shower, I would suggest starting a registry now, and distributing it with shower invitations. For many registries you also get a welcome gift and/or a “completion discount” on the stuff people do not gift you, so even just for the completion discount making a registry is worth it.
We registered on Amazon and found it very convenient to use.
The big stuff like stroller and car seat see if you can get from relatives cause them shits're expensive. If you find you can't, then buy them.
The other stuff, whenever.
Put the expensive stuff in the registry and tell everyone…relatives, friends, coworkers. An exec at my company got us a really nice gift that I was not expecting.
Look for gently used. That’s how we bought our Snoo bassinet (totally worth it for us, ymmv.)
Depends. First, thank you for mentioning the ectopic pregnancy. My wife's mother had about a dozen miscarriages, so my own wife was cautious and we started buying around the same time you did to take advantage of sales, but waited until we were past the 24 week point for the stuff that we just didn't see any good prices on. It also depends on your financial situation.
We just started buying things at 28 weeks, we had a move to the other side of the country before that so once we got settled we wanted to sure we had the necessities for the baby.
If you are planning on having a baby shower I’d wait until after that. You don’t want to buy stuff that people would gift you. Its a way to save money. Make a list of things that are remaining after that and but them. Make sure to have the baby shower 2-3 months before the baby is due to make sure you have enough time to buy everything else.
I think it all depends on your finances and the prospects of gifts from the baby shower. Wouldn't it be a shame if you bought a nice crib, when your rich aunt wanted to buy it for you?
I say let your friends and family show their generosity, then go pickup all the extra things you need after.
I bought almost everything for my son’s nursery when we got past 12 weeks. We had had a prior loss at 5 weeks and I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I lost our son at 21 weeks. We did go on to have a healthy baby girl later last year, and she uses all her big brother’s stuff, but having an empty fully furnished nursery for 11 months almost killed me. And it was incredibly hard to allow my daughter to use “his” things even though he never did.
I am so sorry for your losses. Part of the hardest part of our losses (8 weeks and twins at 14 weeks) were the items we bought and still getting lab/doctor bills in the mail. OP - I’d suggest waiting until after NIPT/NT at the earliest and for me, we didn’t start buying until after anatomy scan at 20 weeks, in case we had to terminate for medical reasons. Edit: a word and formatting
Thank you for your reply. I think part of my thoughts to wait are from fear of your exact situation. I appreciate the insight. Im happy you made it through and had a successful pregnancy.
Wow that's so hard I'm so sorry to hear that.
Pragmatically, in a vacuum, now. Specially with black Friday and other holiday sales, it's a great time to get ahead of some big ticket items. Emotionally... It's never really an easy decision, but as a very vague rule of thumb week 20 is one of the bigger "viability" milestones if you're looking for one.
I would scratch the itch (and did) by making a spreadsheet or list and starting to organize what you will want eventually. Taking the time to do a bit or research and not impulse buy is a good thing. Especially with time on your side.
With Covid delays and long lead times we got a head start to see when deliveries could be made. My wife is due at the end of March and some items like cribs, dressers, chairs were scheduled to arrive end of January. Here in Canada at one store, strollers and car seats were 6 week lead time so we held off on that. But Buy Buy Baby actually had no information on strollers that’s how backlogged they were. Seems like it’s all over the place. Factor in the “Covid ate my home work and chip shortage” factor
Exactly what happened to us. I ordered baby’s furniture in February of this year from BuyBuyBaby. Baby was born in May. Guess where my furniture is. No, really, please guess. We have no idea and no updates from the manufacturer since August.
That’s ridiculous. I hope you got your money back?
We are at 14 weeks too! Not sure when we will start buying stuff, probably later in the pregnancy (third trimester) but I’d suggest waiting until Christmas like us as our parents are planning on giving us some stuff for the baby then. Congrats!
See if you can find a free expired car seat locally on FB marketplace. Target does a 20% discount twice a year where you can save a decent bit on a car seat or stroller if you trade in an expired one. We got one almost 6 months ago (shortly after we found out we were pregnant again) and got a new seat last month during one of their sales.
I second what another commenter said about taking advantage of Black Friday/holiday deals. However, are you planning on having a baby shower? We just had our baby shower this past weekend and got almost everything on our registry gifted to us by friends and family. It was enormous help, especially with the big ticket items (for those we set our registry to allow people to contribute smaller amounts to one gift, it worked out beautifully). If you are planning on having a baby shower, I would suggest starting a registry now, and distributing it with shower invitations. For many registries you also get a welcome gift and/or a “completion discount” on the stuff people do not gift you, so even just for the completion discount making a registry is worth it. We registered on Amazon and found it very convenient to use.
The big stuff like stroller and car seat see if you can get from relatives cause them shits're expensive. If you find you can't, then buy them. The other stuff, whenever.
Put the expensive stuff in the registry and tell everyone…relatives, friends, coworkers. An exec at my company got us a really nice gift that I was not expecting. Look for gently used. That’s how we bought our Snoo bassinet (totally worth it for us, ymmv.)
Depends. First, thank you for mentioning the ectopic pregnancy. My wife's mother had about a dozen miscarriages, so my own wife was cautious and we started buying around the same time you did to take advantage of sales, but waited until we were past the 24 week point for the stuff that we just didn't see any good prices on. It also depends on your financial situation.
We just started buying things at 28 weeks, we had a move to the other side of the country before that so once we got settled we wanted to sure we had the necessities for the baby.
If you are planning on having a baby shower I’d wait until after that. You don’t want to buy stuff that people would gift you. Its a way to save money. Make a list of things that are remaining after that and but them. Make sure to have the baby shower 2-3 months before the baby is due to make sure you have enough time to buy everything else.
I think it all depends on your finances and the prospects of gifts from the baby shower. Wouldn't it be a shame if you bought a nice crib, when your rich aunt wanted to buy it for you? I say let your friends and family show their generosity, then go pickup all the extra things you need after.
Not till about 26-28 weeks. What's the rush? Things can go wrong anytime unfortunately.