Ugh. Tubs and tubs of baby clothing and other miscellaneous stuff, like boppies, baby bottles and a bumbo. Here's my dilemma: Captain Husband and I plan to have more kids at some point in the future so I was planning on saving as much of Sammy's things as possible to use with the next kid(s). However, now that we're faced with a cross-country move, I'm feeling an urge to keep just a few things and get rid of the rest. (It also helps that my brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child this fall, so I plan to offload a lot of the basics to them). I keep telling myself that I can easily build a wardrobe for another child on the cheap thanks to thrift stores and consignment sales, which is how I acquired much of Sammy's stuff to begin with, but then I start to second guess myself. For those of you with multiple children (or planning on multiple kids), how did you decide what to keep and what to get rid of? I'm all ears--seriously, I need to figure something out soon because I have a friend coming in for the weekend and she'd probably prefer a bed to sleep in rather than being crammed in amongst all of the baby stuff.
10 comments:
I would go through all the clothes and pick your favorites - get rid of anything that has stains. Keep the items that you love - if the boppy pillow didn't work for you, then get rid of it, for example. You've probably figured out that babies don't really need all that much. And since you are a frequenter of consignment shops (as am I) you know they'll be someone else who can pay the big bucks for clothes and then you can buy them for a fraction of that! Passing down: depends - if you have another boy, then great, if it's a girl then...On the other hand, I gave away ALL my baby things after I got divorced, vowing I would never have another baby...then I had two more! So we ended up buying everything all over again!
This probably wasn't very helpful, was it :)
We're not really planning on a second, so I've given almost everything away except 2 boxes of clothes I couldn't bear to part with. Sorry I'm no help!
From an organization stand point, start small. Go through what you have, get rid of anything that is torn or stained (or fix or dye them if that is what you want, but do it right away-if they just sit in the mend pile it defeats the purpose of organization) or that you found you didn't like to use. Set aside another pile that you are giving to family. Set aside some unisex pieces that you would like to use again, and sell the rest on consignment or at a yard sale. Any money that you make you can put aside to buy things you really need for the next baby.
We got rid of almost everything we had when the little guy outgrew it. We kept the crib and dresser for future use, but the rest? We gave it away. Our mentality was not giving a second child hand-me-downs. I figure we'll have 9 months when we decide to have another baby to restock. And there's no guarantee that we'll have another boy, right?
just give me a little more time to clean up our house before "your mess" quickly becomes "my mess"...but other than that, THANKS :)
Well, I don't pretend to know anything about anything as it relates to baby supplies, but I do know about purging stuff when moving cross country! In our decisions about what comes and what goes, we are taking into account size, necessity, cost to replace, and amount of money we'd get for selling it. If it's really big, it better be pricey and much needed to make the cut. If it's not really needed, it better be small. If it's really expensive to replace, we'd better be able to sell it for a lot to justify not bringing it. If someone would pay a lot for it, we'll purchase a new one in the future if it's needed. Be ruthless - whatever amount you THINK you'll be taking will end up being twice as much by the time you add the things you've forgotten about!
I kept everything but I didn't have to move. Maybe go through it and keep the stuff that you really really love. I think we are done and I am still having a hard time getting rid of stuff.
I kept everything after I had Ethan. We moved 3 times, KS to NC, NC to VA and VA to NC (with a few moves around NC). I am just now getting rid of both kids stuff because we are done having kids. I didn't see the point in starting over when I was able to get his clothing in a few bins and bottles and other small baby items in another bin. Moving bouncers and swings was a bit more challenging, bit taking it all apart placing screws in baggies and taping to the legs helped us not lose anything. Even after I had Lily (a girl and not a boy) I held on to his stuff until he was 2 and gave to friends who had boys and we were certain we were done having kids. So I would say hold on to it. You are having a PCS move I would assume so it won't be to much work for you ;). We did a few of our moves as ditty moves and I'm pretty sure S was annoyed that I kept it all, oh well he wasn't mad when all we had to do was open a few boxes when L came along ;)
We kept all the big stuff. Stroller, crib, playpen, & swing. We ditched everything else besides the special clothes we wanted to keep. If I had cloth diapered the first, I'd have kept all the dipes too.
I have exactly the same "problem"! 3 boxes of Amys clothes are still in Germany and another 2 in our cellar here. Some stuff she never wore or only once...we got a lot of hand me downs. I really need to be strong and throw stuff out or give it away but I find it hard!!!
Post a Comment