Thursday 13 March 2014

Baby Show Haul

Last week Mr C and I went to the Baby Show at the Excel Centre to start our epic shopping journey into parenthood.

As a FTM (First Time Mum), I feel wholeheartedly unprepared for the experience, which is ridiculous since I am actually rather good with babies and kids, and labour holds neither mystery nor terror for me as it does many others in the same boat.

Oh, and did I mention that at 23wks, I now look like I swallowed a boat?

Look. I'll show you...

Big Mama
 Since we don't really know what we're getting ourself in for, we decided to make a shopping list, Cheerin-style.

Mr C is a very logical fellow, and I am rather fond of logic myself. I am also unable to trust my brain at the moment. As such, our little list (this was my idea, just so you know) turned into a spreadsheet, which included all the items we may need to buy and their price point from various common household retailers.

I did not go overboard with this as we simply wanted to arm ourselves with a comparative price guide for the Baby Show. We have been to similar shows before, here and in South Africa (The Rand Show - oh the memories) and we are well aware that many stand holders will claim that their product is being sold at a hefty discount for the show, only to discover that most of it is utter bullshit.

We think we did rather well and so we took pictures.

Here's a good one.

Cool Stuff
We did get just a few little freebies, but not many.
Here is a list of our haul:
Baby carrier - MaByLand Trek - £30
Sangenic Hygiene nappy bin - £10.00
Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature new born starter set - £15.00
Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles - £13.00
Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Electric Breast Pump - £52.77
Chilli Peeps multi-purpose teats - £10.00
Milton dummy steriliser + 50 mini steri tabs - £7.00
13 Funky Giraffe Bibs - £20.00
Baby grooming kit - £12.00
Fluffy duck toy - £5.00

We also recently bought our pram and carry cot from Kiddicare.
Behold the Babyzen Recaro Pram:



Amazing, don't you think?

We did not buy a microwave steriliser at the show because we got it cheaper at Kiddicare.
This Friday, we went to Kiddicare and bought the few little things we wanted that were on promo and therefore cheaper than the show - a mobile, the steriliser, and few other little bits.

We have not bought a baby bag. they are ridiculously over-priced and besides, we went onto this lovely little website called Vertbaudet. They sent us a catalogue with some rather cute baby things.  They are quite expensive, but with your first shop, you get £15 off your order of £20 or more plus a free changing bag which is very sweet looking and ... I'll take a picture when I get it and show you. To get this deal, we bought a hooded towel  and a set of babygrows. The total after discount was a whopping £11.99!

So it's all good and we're doing well. 
Baby is doing well too and that's all for now.