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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
BR: How long did you use...
Some good friends of ours generously offered to lend us some of their baby gear. I'm totally fine with gently used items, especially from people we know and trust, but I am uncomfortable not knowing how long we might be needing certain items... and although they say they won't have another baby for a long time, I wonder, just in case.
How long did you use the following? Are these things that babies quickly grow out of, so would be worth not spending money on, if we don't have to?
- Pack and play
- Standing swing
- Snug ride car seat and base
Their baby is about 1.5 years old now, so I'm assuming he's far outgrown these. Just wondering what is normal...
Re: BR: How long did you use...
good questions!
I know my niece outgrew the height limits on her infant seat well before 1 yr.
Not sure about a swing, but most say the weight limit is 25 lbs.
My niece (1yr. 4 mo.) still uses the pack and play - mostly as a nap area while my MIL babysits her. I really can't picture her being happy playing in the PnP at this age (she is SO active) but it seems to be working great as a place to sleep when away from home.
We got a lot of hand me downs, too. Mostly clothes, which I love. Babies grow out of clothes so fast that a lot of outfits we received were only worn once or twice!
I think the swing would be good to take from them, as those types of things vary from baby to baby. Brooke has a 70$ swing that she will only sit in for about 5 minutes, and a 20-30$ bouncer that she loves. Other babies hate the bouncer, love their swing.
The rest are really up to you. We still use the pack-n-play and they are relatively inexpensive. Vance was picky about hand me downs for things that she'll use a LOT (like strollers, cribs, etc), but for the next bebeh, we're saving all that we have now.
I would buy a new carseat. They may have updated the safety or something (I don't know, just making things up), but we use the carseat SO much that it's something I would spend money on... totally a personal opinion though.
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To be honest, we have a play yard and never really used it much. I think we would have used it if we didn't live in such a small apartment. I did like it the second time around b/c our play yard came with a separate bassinet and that's what we used for the first month or so. Getting back to your question, I would probably use the play yard for the first 7-9 months.
We never used a standing swing.
We had an infant carrier/base and used it for 10 or 11 months with my oldest. This time around we switched our youngest to a convertible carseat pretty early b/c she's a lot bigger/heavier. I think that you'd probably outgrow the infant seat in length before weight and it should last a while.
Jaylee loved her swing the the beginning and was over it by 2 1/2 months. sometimes she will let us put her back into it. this is one thing we did not buy and got as a hand me down. Swings can get pretty expensive so I would say to borrow one until you are sure baby will like. If she does you can go out and buy one for yourself and keep it for the second baby.
Car seat and base is something I would defiently buy new. Even if you know the persone well and all the car seat is one of the most important things your baby can have. So buying new is always the best option. Unless you buy your carseat new and use the base from your friend as a second base in your other car.
Jaylee is still in the bassinet part of the pack and play. It's where she takes a nap. I know that the bassinet part has a weight limit of 15 lbs. But then you can always use the rest as a playpen. We actually have 2 of these. One for the house and the other for the sitter, so maybe borrowing your friends pack and play is a great idea.
Thanks for the great input! I will def plan on trying out their swing and pack and play before buying ones of our own.
One question:
Re: always buying a car seat new. I totally understand the importance of the car seat, but if this one is just 1.5 years old and only used for part of that time (also never been in an accident) AND the parents intend to use it for their next child, is that really not safe enough? Are you supposed to buy a new seat with every child in case the old ones somehow aren't safe anymore?
These are really good friends of ours (he was one of DH's groomsmen), so I KNOW they wouldn't be secretly not telling us about any apparent flaws. Sorry if this is a DUH-type of question... this is all new to me, so maybe there's something I'm missing.
This particular seat is one of those infant carrier-like ones, so we'd purchase a bigger seat when baby outgrows it. I always intended to buy one of our own, but not necessarily an infant-specific one, so I'm just wondering whether it would be a terrible idea to use this carrier-version while the baby is tiny and before buying the bigger/convertible model.
I think this is the model they have:
http://tinyurl.com/ygxvxpv
Totally not trying to be cheap, just wondering...
I think the rule for carseats is to use within 6 years of manufacture...so you'd be fine borrowing the infant seat.
Our DS outgrew the infant car seat because of weight by 6 months
We used the swing for about 4 or 5 months, it's now being borrowed by friends of ours along with our bouncy seat.
The pack and play we still have an use for travel. For a brief period when DS could sit up but not crawl, we would let him play in the pack and play for a little while each day for "alone time" - that lasted maybe a few weeks.
We used the same infant seat with both kids. I think the "rule" is to replace them every 5-6 years. If the seat hasn't been recalled or in an accident, it should be fine to use.
Wow, I didn't realize babies grew out of some of these things so quickly. I will def be more open to gently used hand-me-downs for the things that are only useful for a few months.
I think we may try to use to infant seat while baby is small. Then I'll buy a new convertible seat that we can transition to when he/she is ready.
Thanks for the advice! Much appreciated!