Lost Baby Items! And Laundry!

So, you have a new baby and you can't find anything? That happened to me. The wet bag, his "drool rags" (cloth wet wipes) seemed to be low in quantity, his knit hat, one of his toys... did we leave them somewhere? The babysitter's? Are they in his room? Our room? If this happens to you, try looking in laundry baskets. Since we have 3, at least one is usually full of clean clothes, and it wasn't until we had a free Saturday to tackle several loads of laundry, requiring all three baskets, that we found so many missing items!
The mittens, however, were not there. We found a pair of infant sized mittens from Columbia that fit him and stayed on, despite the fact that they were a bit big (meaning he'll grow into them!) Of course, they disappeared, and Amazon no longer carries them. So, I bought a new pair of mittens, and we'll see how long they last. They are very thick and warm, but they do not stay on well. He can, and does, pull them off. Try explaining to a six month old the importance of warm hands.
As a side note- why are infant mittens so much more expensive than adult mittens?! And don't get them confused with newborn mittens, which are used only for keeping babies from scratching themselves. I mean, you know, from their sharp nails and no hand control- they are much too young to "scratch" themselves! Get your head out of the gutter and read on.
People always told me that when I had a baby I would be doing SO MUCH LAUNDRY. I was like, baby clothes are so small, unless you don't own many of them, you can do a LOT of baby clothes in one load! But what I didn't realize is that the baby doesn't just puke or wet or poop himself, he also is quite excellent at getting it on all of my clothes, and his changing pad, and his blankets, and everything else! We do extra laundry because I find that I am the one going through 3 t-shirts a day!
We acquired a LOT of bibs when we had baby showers. And we got used bibs from friends with kids. I couldn't believe the amount of bibs we got. Now, I'm doing loads of laundry because we RAN OUT OF BIBS. They are excellent at catching drool and puke, but man. They get used a lot.

Get some contacts

I was overdue for an eye doctor appointment when I found out I was pregnant. Then I found out you shouldn't go to the eye doctor while you are pregnant, or until six weeks after the birth. Something about the water retention in your body affecting your eyes, I think. So I held out, knowing my vision was not as good as it used to be: it got to where I wasn't comfortable watching a movie with subtitles. (And yes, I do like to watch foreign movies at times.)
So pretty much six months after my son was born, I made the appointment and got a prescription for my glasses. Contacts, however, were not so easy.
After several trials (and errors) one eye would see well while the other was off a bit. It's pretty frustrating to have to make appointments for contact check-ups while trying to get back working and taking care of an infant, so the appointment scheduling was happening more on a monthly basis, rather than weekly. I was about to give up and just wear glasses all the time right about the time my son turned six months old and found out how fun it is to pull mommy's glasses off her head, and practice his skill of gripping. When he's determined, he grips quite well and then you have a bit of a mom vs. baby battle going on while trying not to bend a frame. That, and then the glasses have some smudges that grandma calls "love prints" but that make it difficult to see much, in which case you might as well be wearing a pair of contacts that are slightly off-prescription!
On a side note, right about this time, baby boy has also acquired the astounding talent of pulling bookmarks out of books! At first it was funny. Now, he doesn't even have to look, he can just reach his hand behind his head and ta-da! It's now holding a bookmark! Consequently, I have developed the habit of memorizing page numbers before closing my book, just in case.

First Foods

Week one of solid foods: rice cereal, mixed with breast milk, increasing in thickness.
Week two of solid foods: real food! Fun! Up first: pear, because I had prepared some in October when our pear tree was full of ripe pears. Not really: we have a fruit-eating enemy in the backyard called Mr. Squirrel, but that's another story. So I cooked the pears down, mashed them, and froze them in ice cube trays. After they were frozen, I put the pear cubes in a plastic bag and waited for my baby to grow big enough to enjoy them.
It worked pretty well, an ice cube sized amount is a decent amount for one serving. I put it in a dish with a little breast milk and put that in a pan of water to heat it up. I have read several warnings about microwaving breast milk- something about microwaves breaking down something in the milk- but I don't own one, so I am already an expert at finding ways to heat things up non-microed.
We found that heating it hotter than you think is safe is typically they way to go, because by the time it gets stirred up and to the table and a bib is put on the baby, it has cooled to about the right temperature. (If not, I add a splash of cool water)
The looks on his face were great, can you imagine tasting FLAVOR for the first time?!
Next was avocado, which I knew he would love. Why? Because it's not always easy to find a decent organic ripe avocado and they are usually pretty expensive! but New Pi has them on sale for 99 cents right now, and they all happen to be perfect! I just mashed a little bit with a fork and added some breast milk to it, and it's like his own guacamole! I wouldn't recommend eating his version, though. Avocado+milk= no thanks.

Then we tried banana, and he ate a lot! Again, I just mashed it with a fork mixed w/ boob juice. It had some small chunks which he tended to spit out. I didn't think I would be the kind of dork that played "airplane" and such games while feeding my baby, but I find myself doing whatever makes him giggle! And every time I feed him the spoon "car" speeding up, shifting gears and then hitting the breaks and crashing into his mouth- he giggles and eats it! I guess I'm starting to learn WHY parents are such dorks!
I found these spoons on Amazon by Dr. Brown's. They promote being long so that you can get to the bottom of tall jars, but I don't know what tall jars you would be feeding a baby out of. It is nice, though, to have a long spoon so that your hand isn't getting too close to the gooey pile that has formed on his face. And the flat part is convenient for the chin-scrape of escaped food.

Homemade Brown Rice

I've been reading this book, Super Baby Food, to find out how to make homemade baby food. The most frequent piece of advice we got about having a baby is "Don't buy baby food!" I'm hoping to find an easy way to work our meals into baby food, but I am anticipating a few problems:

1. Popcorn and nachos probably don't blend too well.
2. We like to eat spicy foods. Food in baby food jars don't list many spices for ingredients. I'm assuming there's a reason for that.

We have a blender that works great for margaritas, but not much else. We have a food processor that I use for making pesto, but I frequently try to use it wrong and have a plastic part in there that shouldn't be, which is why it's kind of chewed up. We have an immersion blender which is useful for blending soups, and I could see it working on baby food too.

So, for his half birthday (6 months) we fed him his first solid food: Earth's Best brand organic brown rice powder, mixed with breast milk. After a few days of this we realized the reason he was making faces at it was because it was quite cold. After warming up the milk to the normal temperature, we would mix it with the rice powder in a bowl from the cupboard. The bowls in the cupboard are like refrigerator temperature, so they immediately made the food cold. We are now either warming the bowl up or heating up the food after it's mixed, this has seemed to help.

Then we made brown rice for dinner and I thought I would try to serve him the real thing! In the book, she suggests blending dry brown rice for 2 minutes and then cooking it. I thought, if I'm making it anyway, I might as well make the rice first, then blend a little bit for our little grub. This experiment FAILED. What happened was that I discovered how to make a ball of solid starch. It was like the consistency of bean paste, if you've ever had that, but more gummy. It was practically a tennis ball sized piece of sticky gum. And you can imagine how hard that was to clean off the blender blades. Next, I tried, sticking the gum ball in the food processor, thinking that might work better. What that did was made even more blades to clean starch ball off of.

I hope you weren't expecting this blog to be helpful. I guess it can be helpful in a "here's what NOT to do" sort of way. I'll keep experimenting and report back. In conclusion, it's nice to have that box of rice powder on hand in case your attempts at making homemade baby stuff don't work out so well. But the price difference? $4 for a box of 1/2 lb organic brown rice cereal vs. $1 for 1/2 lb bulk organic brown rice in bulk at New Pi Coop.

Buying Baby Clothes

People like to buy baby clothes. Because of this, you will receive baby clothes whether you register for them or not. Some will come with receipts. Even if they don't, there's about a 60% chance that Target will take them back. Even though babies might go through several outfits a day and you put off laundry as long as possible, you can still end up with more onesies than you need. I say this because of Tip #1: having a baby when a lot of your friends have two year olds- We received a LOT of used clothes from friends. Our little boy did not get a chance to wear everything before he outgrew it. We were also lucky enough to squeak him in between my next-door-neighbor's baby (2 months younger) and her sister's baby (a few months older) so that the baby clothes came to our baby in between the two sisters! You, probably, will not be so lucky.
So, Here are the lessons I have learned with baby clothes:
1. Don't buy anything newborn sized.
a. Other people will do this for you. They can't help it.
b. Used newborn baby clothes are practically not used at all. They have maybe been worn once or twice per baby, possibly less if seasonal.
2. I don't recommend those swaddle outfits. We thought just a blanket worked best for swaddlin'.
3. Find friends with babies. They are probably overloaded with baby crap and will be happy to give you a box full of clothes as their baby outgrows them. This also works for friends of friends!
4. Consignment! Goodwill has a lot of baby clothes, but they come with stains and missing buttons. Consignment stores are a bit more picky about what they buy. I recommend KidWorks if you are in the Iowa City area. But don't go there if your baby is the same size as mine. At least not until after I've picked through the clothes.
5. Learning sizes is a science. Our six month old has been wearing 12 month size clothes for about two months now. Except if the brand is Old Navy, in which case the clothes are 3-6 month size. And the pants are 12-18 months but the jackets are 3 month sized. Don't even get me started on the shoes. And I don't know if you are willing to take a six month old into a dressing room at a clothes store, but I am not. I'd much rather buy an outfit for $1 and take it home to find out that it doesn't fit, which is why I recommend Lesson #4.
6. Look at those buttons. We have one outfit that you have to unsnap completely and then still pull off his legs (the snaps don't make it open all the way) just to change a diaper. Outfits like these, of course, NEVER get dirty so that you spend all day dealing with them with each diaper change.
7. Long-sleeved onesies in the packages of plain white do not exist for sizes larger than 3-6 months. Not sure why this is. We have looked. We have failed at finding any.
8. Those 3-packs of white onesies are practical. You might love them. You will not, however, be receiving any as a gift. They are not cute. Or soft. People like to buy cute and soft gifts. Not practical ones.
9. Babies who wear cloth diapers need bigger pants. They have bigger butts. (Well, with the diaper on)
10. I'm not a name brand person. I have never set foot inside the Old Navy. But, with the hand-me-downs and used clothes I have collected, I have to say that the Old Navy brand baby clothes so far has been my favorite, my baby wears them more than anything else.
That's all the tips I have so far, and I'm happy to say I haven't found my baby wearing anything long enough for him (or me) to get attached to it. Except his Caterpillar outfit, which is going to be a gift to a very lucky baby very soon.

Breast Pump

I knew I would need one of these if I wanted to work at all, and the choice came down to Ameda or Medela. It seemed like they were basically the same thing, so I chose Ameda. These little machines that can take batteries or be plugged into an outlet or a car adapter, are probably worth about $40 but they get away with selling them for $250 probably because they think insurance will cover most of the cost since they are considered “medical equipment” and you get a prescription for them. At least, that’s what I thought.
But the truth is, at least in my experience, that insurance will only cover a portion of the cost IF you have maxed out your deductible for the year. Which you will do AFTER going through labor in a hospital. Which means you would need to go buy the pump in that time that you are at home with a newborn in order for the insurance claim to go through after your deductible has maxed (also meaning that the insurance clam for the hospital stay has been submitted). In trying to prepare for the baby, I went and picked out the pump before the birth and therefore had to pay the full $250 out of my pocket.
But, it has been a handy tool. I use it at work, increasingly amazed at the amount of “baby food” my body can produce. It goes into plastic bottles and into a cooler until I take it home and transfer it to glass bottles in the fridge. When I started to stock up and run out of bottles, I got the bag adapter. These little plastic pieces hook through the top of the plastic bag so that you pump right into the bag. It works fine for one side but trying to do both is difficult; there is nothing to hold on to. I recommend buying the (much cheaper) bags (like Lasinoh), pumping into bottles and then pouring it into bags. The Lasinoh bags also have a much more accurate measurement on the side. I don’t even know how the Ameda bags figured out their measurements! They are WAY off.
Whatever you choose, you will want to acquire the skill of surfing the Internet/reading/doing People crosswords while pumping to make the time go by during your "break".

Breastfeeding and the Amazing Boppy

There was never a question about whether or not I would breastfeed, but I’m a supporter of natural things. Still, a lot of people seemed to be very happy to hear that I “chose” to breastfeed. I never thought of it as a choice. I could use the milk that my body is naturally producing, always have the food source on hand, which is best for my baby’s health- OR- I could go out and spend a bunch of money on some powder that’s been fortified to be similar, but not as good as, breast milk? Hmmm.
I guess some women do have problems breastfeeding, so I can’t comment on their decisions to choose formula. I just didn’t have a problem. From the very first feeding, my baby was the one who knew what to do and he latched on like a trooper! I used that Lasinoh stuff in the first couple of weeks, but I didn’t need it after that. Six months in, I still enjoy breastfeeding my baby. It’s very relaxing, although it does make me pretty tired at times.
I do not recommend breastfeeding without a boppy, though. I know people have been breastfeeding since the beginning of the human race, I just don’t know how they did so without the boppy. This is one of those items that I wouldn’t have bought, but I was lucky enough to have been given one by a friend, and now I realize the value! Or maybe I’m spoiled: when I’m out and about without the boppy, I find breastfeeding to be all awkward. The only place that it wasn’t too bad was the nursing room at Coral Ridge Mall. That’s right, they have a nursing room at the Coral Ridge Mall! A friend told me about this- by the food court, there are bathrooms, and as you are walking towards them, you pass the “family area” where they have chairs and a couch, a sink next to a changing pad (thank you for realizing that we might need to wash our hands after changing poopy diapers!) and a private nursing room with a rocking arm chair, big enough to put the stroller in too, and there is room for older kids. I mean, probably toddlers. Not like teen agers. They would probably not prefer to be in the nursing room with mom. Although I did read that you can nurse your child from age 0-15. Hey, whatever trips your trigger! The area also has a toddler bathroom and a family bathroom. But I’m not here to rave on the bathrooms at Coral Ridge. I’m here to talk about breastfeeding.
I read Babywise which has been controversial (even Wikipedia says so!) I knew about the controversy when I began reading the book, and I think they did too because in the newest edition, they very carefully word things. Anyway, to save you the trouble of reading yet another book on parenting: you get in the routine of the baby eating, playing and then sleeping. Repeat. In that order. At least 2 ½ hours between each feeding. It didn’t happen that way every time, but it did happen often enough that it wasn’t hard at all for my baby to develop the habit of starting to get tired about 2 hours after the beginning of his last feeding, then taking 20-45 minute nap, then waking up hungry. I timed everything and kept track of each feeding in the first two months, then I started to recognize patterns and I dropped keeping track of it. I just try to remember how long it’s been since the last time he ate.
I don't know if that was the trick, but I have a happy baby that sleeps through the night and grows really fast. I think he gets more hind milk with this method, which is my guess of why he's so big.

Losing Baby Weight

I read a lot of stuff when I was pregnant. I was getting myself into an unfamiliar role that comes with a huge amount of responsibility, so I found myself reading so much that I was actually quite knowledgeable in the end, due to the fact that there were several things in which one source said one thing, and another source said the exact opposite. I learned enough to know that every baby is different and every pregnancy is different and everything is different in general.
But the one thing that was repeated over and over is that there is no good way to lose baby weight. You shouldn’t be concerned about your figure at this time; don’t even try to exercise because you shouldn’t if you aren’t comfortable: do only what is comfortable, and basically: why are you even asking this question?! So, I didn’t really care too much about it, but I had about an 8 ½ lb baby and after 1 week I lost 20 lbs and after a couple more weeks I had lost the other 20 lbs that I gained. So, really, I lost all the baby weight in less than six weeks, maybe even less than a month. I wasn’t exercising or eating great. I mean, really- we had a heat wave and I was pretty much trapped inside an air conditioned house laying around breast feeding and enjoying a newborn in delirium. So, I would say that my effort to keep up with regular exercise throughout the pregnancy, aiming for 30 minutes of walking every day (even though some days I would only get in 10 minutes) was what helped to shed those pounds. That, and a newborn who happened to be a VERY good eater.
Also, I recommend that you do NOT listen to your midwife or doctor who thinks that gaining 40 lbs (or anything over 25 lbs in my case) is unhealthy or wrong. I'd say, if you can lose it that fast, you can gain it that fast. And again, everyone is different.

Nipples

These come in 3 different sizes: 0-3 months, 3-6 months and 6+ months. The difference seems to be the size of the hole and how fast the milk pours out. I’m not sure how that applies to age: Even the slowest holed nipple he seems to chug down in a couple of minutes! Anyway, you’ll end up with way more than you need, since most bottles come with them, so don’t be tempted to buy too many. Also, Target has the uncanny ability to have every size in stock EXCEPT the size you are looking for. This is true whether you are buying them for your own baby or for a gift. I’m not making this up, I’m 0 for 3 at the Coral Ridge Target.
Once you have them, you will need to wash them. You might have one of those dishwasher baskets. Don’t know what that is? Neither did I, luckily the person that gave me theirs put a note in it explaining what to use it for. You put little bottle-related items in it in the dishwasher so that they can fly around but stay in the basket. So nipples don’t get very clean in those, which didn’t surprise me, since you need to get up in the narrow area to get it clean. Yes, you will have to handwash them. At first I had fun taking them out of a sink full of hot soapy water and pushing the water out with my finger, watching that nipple hole squirt out like a squirt gun! Also fun if you point it at a dog or cat nearby. (Yes, this is how parents of infants have fun….) But they looked rather cloudy afterward. My husband discovered a much more efficient way to get them clean, and this is what we have stood by ever since: wipe off the outside, then flip it inside out (this takes some practice) and wash that well, then flip it back! Clear and cloudless nipples!

Washing diapers

I think the main reason people are hesitant to go with cloth diapers is because they don't want the chore of washing them. To that I say: it's winter in Iowa and I don't want the chore of taking the trash out daily!
Washing diapers isn't what it used to be. You can buy a diaper sprayer, which is much better than the pre-soak in the toilet or bucket! It hooks up to the toilet and sprays (with a lot of pressure!) the poo off.
I use Nellie's laundry soap. I just happened to have some before I was pregnant, I didn't realize it was good for diapers and baby clothes. Use half as much on diapers as you would on clothes.

I air dry on the clothes line or on my drying rack in the basement when I can. Occasionally I'll use the dryer when I need the diapers to be dry faster- 50 minutes on low heat. You aren't supposed to dry them on high heat. Just so you know- cloth diapers will last longer if you don't use the dryer every time.

Bum Genius vs. Grovia vs. TotsBots

We never had to make the decision between disposable and cloth diapers. My husband and I are both "Think Zero Waste" people who use cloth napkins and cloth rags. If Iowa City had a diaper service, we would have definitely considered it (where they pick up dirty diapers and drop off clean ones for you). The hard decision to make was which type of diaper to buy. If you can get your hands on some used diapers, great! My mom decided her gift to us was going to be the cloth diapers, so we visited the diaper store in Cedar Rapids and bought some online, too. Here's what we chose and the pros and cons:

1. TotsBots
These were our favorites before we started using them. They are 50% bamboo which is supposed to be super-absorbent. The selling point was that you don't have to tuck an insert into them, you just fold over the long inside, it's all attached (known as "all-in-one"). They are from Europe (where they call them "nappies") and they are a bit different than the other ones I have seen. What I liked, after using them, is the stretchiness to the velcro sides. It's easy to get it on tight on a little baby. I also like the material, it doesn't stain and spraying the poop off is easier than it is with the Bum Genius. What I don't like is that although it doesn't leak, it feels wet to the baby instantly. So if we are in the car or in a restaurant and he pees, he wants his diaper changed NOW. This could be useful in potty training, though.

2. GroVia
You buy the shells, and you buy the inserts (or "stay dry soaker pads"). The inserts snap in on top and bottom and you swap out just the insert with each diaper change.
Pros:
It's cheaper, we have 2 shells ($17 each) and 8 inserts ($9 each) which makes $13.25 for each diaper.
It's great to travel with: the inserts take up a lot less space in the wet bag than cloth diapers do.
Less to wash: the inserts are small, and you only have to wash the shells when they get dirty.
Cons:
The shells get dirty. You don't want to be stuck with only 2 shells when running errands, just in case your baby has a big poop in both of them! I would say it contains all the poop in the insert about 60% of the time. It doesn't leak out, it just gets the shell dirty so that it needs to be washed before being reused.
It takes awhile to dry. Air drying takes awhile, dryer drying (which is low heat) takes awhile.
You need to stretch out the middle part when snapping the insert in. Other people may not have this technique down (like grandparents, friends, daycares) when they are changing the diapers. Which may cause a mess.
When they are wet, the baby knows. Just like the TotsBots, they feel wet to the baby and he WILL complain.

3. Bum Genius
Probably the most popular name among cloth diapers, we weren't too excited about these when we bought them. But after using them, they are what I recommend if you are only buying one brand of diaper, for this reason only:
PRO: They do NOT feel wet to the baby after he pees! Like, you can be at a restaurant and your baby has a wet diaper and he doesn't complain! Like, hooray!
The reason we weren't too excited about these is because you have to stuff the inserts into each diaper. I imagined long days of washing diapers and then stuffing diapers. About as much fun as washing clothes and then folding clothes- it's like a whole extra chore! But they magically work, very well. We started off stuffing them with the newborn sized insert. Then we switched to the larger insert (which folds over to make it adjustable to the diaper size). Now we use "overnighters" when he sleeps: one large one and one small one. After 11 hours of sleep (sometimes, when we are lucky) both inserts are absolutely soaking wet but the diaper still feels dry. It's amazing. And adjustable- as he gets older and produces more piss, and sleeps even LONGER than 11 hours... yeah? We'll have more inserts stuffed into those diapers! Another pro: they dry fast. When we put off washing diapers until the last one and we need to cheat and use the dryer for 50 minutes on low heat, these are the ones (inserts too) that come out dry. And when they air-dry, these are the ones that dry first.
But you do have a choice.
1. Velcro (which apparently is a brand-name so you have to call it something stupid which no one knows what it means, "hook and loop")
2. Snaps
We like velcro best. It's easy. But apparently it's also easy for a toddler to take on and off. Which I've heard can be solved with onesies. But we got 50% velcro and 50% snaps just in case.

Here's what you need to know with all of these diapers:
OS means one size. I recommend this. The diapers (or shells) come with snaps that adjust to the growing baby. We had ours on the smallest setting until maybe 2-3 months, then the middle setting, which he is on at six months.
All-in-one means you don't have separate inserts to stuff into the diaper's pockets. I do NOT recommend this. It sounds easy at first, but the one Bum Genius diaper we have that's an All-in-one takes FOREVER to dry, feels wet instantly to the baby, and it's just awkward and bulky.

You might not be able to use these diapers with a newborn. You don't want to buy newborn sized diapers since you will only use them for three months or less. Because of this, you can rent them for about what it would cost to buy disposables. We did this for our 8 lb. 5 oz. newborn, and after paying for a three month rental, our baby outgrew them in less than a month. We were lucky to have dealt with kind people who gave us a store credit after we returned them in a month. In hind sight, we could have used newborn disposable diapers for about 2-3 weeks and then used the Bum Genius 4.0 diapers snapped to the smallest setting. But we didn't know our baby would be such a rapid grower!

Baby wearing the newborn (or XS sized) diaper

Why Choose Cloth Diapers?

Why choose cloth diapers?
1. Financial reasons. We bought a couple, the rest were gifts. My son is six months old while I write this, and we have not yet bought him a disposable diaper!
2. It's fun! They are colorful, cute and free of plastic.
3. Environmental reasons. No waste going to the landfill. If you believe the argument that washing diapers is just as bad as throwing them away, you should probably eat all your food on paper plates, because the same arguments apply:
a. Washing them uses energy and wastes water. Maybe, if you fill a 20 year old washing machine full of water and put just a few diapers in every time. And then you use the clothes dryer for every load. Which would be like running the dishwasher with a few plates and then using the heat dry function (what does that function even do?!)
b. Manufacturing the cloth diapers uses energy. Yeah, so does manufacturing the disposable ones, and they have to make a lot more of them!
c. I have read that maybe cloth diapers are the better choice environmentally if you have a second child to use them on... even if you don't, they will last for a few kids, if not several- you can buy and/or sell them used: they are worth about half of the brand-new price when used and in decent condition.
4. Better for your baby: what makes disposable diapers dry are chemicals. Keeping chemicals off babies is good.
5. Potty training is easier if the baby can feel when he's wet, or so we've heard.

Click here to see what we chose to use.

Why do you want to know this stuff?

There are so many things to learn when you enter the parenthood phase of life. As my son turns six months old, I am starting to realize how quickly I've learned new things, and how quickly they will be forgotten as he continues to turn from a newborn to an infant to a toddler and beyond. Since my life is rapidly changing from month-to-month with an infant, I thought I would share what I have learned, some reviews on baby stuff, some info on baby food creations and any other knowledge I've gathered as I learn to be a 'rent.
So far, the baby has been pretty affordable: the food is free and the diapers are reusable. Most of the "baby crap" we accumulated has been hand-me-downs from friends or gifts. Tip #1 when having a baby: make sure all your friends have two year olds so that they are ready and happy to give you all their baby crap!
Tip #2: the most recurring advice we were given about parenting was: don't buy baby food! So I will have some fun with experimenting on how to feed a toothless baby!