One of the things that I wish I did a little bit more before becoming a parent was to do more research...Ask some more questions from experienced parents...get some ideas on how to be a more resourceful mom. I guess those months before Baby Bear arrived was a whirlwind, and I just didn't have the time (or the energy) to sit down and get a little bit more information.
I feel like I've been sucked into the chaotic consumer-driven world of places like Babies R Us. I can't tell you how many times I've walked down those aisles and thought, "hmmmm, maybe we should consider getting one of those." There are so many things that one child just does not need. I can name a few things already in our household that Baby Bear has touched maybe once or twice in her lifetime. Yet, we have them stored for those "just in case" moments.
It's been a wild game of trial and error. Before Baby Bear was born, we guessed and bought what we thought was minimally necessary. My thinking was that since we didn't know what to expect, we should buy the minimum and add as needs arise. When Baby Bear entered our lives, I realized that many of those once "necessary" items became "unnecessary" or "more than we needed." As Baby Bear developed, other items we had weren't quite the right fit. So on top of the unnecessary we bought more that was necessary. On top of the items that weren't quite right, we had to replace with more suitable purchases.
In the end, our minimum amount of things became just too much.
So this is why sometimes I wish I had done some more research. Perhaps we could have found the items cheaper. Perhaps we would have known beforehand that the items that seemed better for our baby, were just a bunch of expensive nonsense and scaled down. Perhaps, I would have been more careful about considering the worth to Baby Bear's growth and development. Perhaps we wouldn't have ended up spending so much on frivolities. Perhaps...perhaps...perhaps...
But since I don't have a time machine handy, it's a little too late for perhaps. Or...
Perhaps it's all just part of becoming a wiser more efficient parent.
4 comments:
I think you should start a site or post items that you have found "necessary" or "unnecessary" that way, others could learn from your trial and error! :)I know that I would find that helpful one day (ONE DAY; not now). :)
thats a good idea cindy has ... i totally know what you mean, beth has sooooooo many unnecessary things ... and sadly to say, a lot of the things that she does use all the time are the things we got for free, like hand-me-downs from our siblings whose kids have outgrown them, or gifts from our experienced parent friends.
One thing that helped us is asking the question... "did our parents have this when we were babies?"
Things that are "essential" are usually things that have been around for several generations.
But of course it's always hard to resist the temptation of the latest and greatest baby gadgets.
I can imagine how hard it is to refrain from indulging your only child. Like with my "child", she has about a thousand food bowls, a million toys that get lost that very same day and her food might be more expensive than mine :|
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