Baby stuff

[bigbadboss101]

Good info. A bit early for the original question but later on when you need toddler shoes. The place in Aspen is very good. My wife likes them as they have good selection and are very helpful. I have heard the same from other moms.

http://www.littlefootprints.ca/

[cycosis]

Kacz' kids here, lemme know how I can help! We'll match across the board to any in city retailer if they have promos running.

[s_havinga]

Get a good stroller, one that maneuvers well and can easily be steered with one hand. If you drive a car, make sure it folds down to fit in your trunk with minimal disassembly. Once you confirm that, sell the car and but an SUV or minivan.ha. Kids come with a ton of crap.

Probably going to want some sort of swing or bouncy chair (likely both). Something that your can put the baby down in well trying to make dinner ect. These can be frustrating as different kids like different things and it sucks to drop $300 on a swing that your kid hates. Try borrowing one if you can.

A little further down the road you'll be looking for wagons, chariots, small bikes, lots of great deals on kijiji / facebook groups for these types of items that kids grow out of so fast.

[drtoohotty1]

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Just found out we are expecting our first kid now too and I am glad I bought the sedan version this year.

Congrats Cody!

[colsankey]

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unfortunately the recaro baby seat is not approved in canada.

Our car seat regulations are pretty specific.

Not sure where you heard that, but we bought a Recaro seat from Kacz Kids last year. I saw it, thought it was cool and wife said she didnt care either way. So no beyond discount or anything, but race car won out

[dirtsniffer]

What should I use for a camera?

[rage2]

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Not sure where you heard that, but we bought a Recaro seat from Kacz Kids last year. I saw it, thought it was cool and wife said she didnt care either way. So no beyond discount or anything, but race car won out

Recaro has a model approved here a couple years ago, but the cool looking ones that look like their grown up race seats are still not approved here.

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What should I use for a camera?

I used an iPod/iPhone app for the last 6 years across 3 kids. Can’t beat $5 haha.

https://cloudbabymonitor.com

[speedog]

Car seats, a good thing really. I remember my one younger brother at about three years of age falling out my parent's car while turning onto a gravel road from my grandparent's farm when the rear passenger door on our Rambler station wagon popped open (vehicle doors did that sort of thing way back then) - my Mom got out, picked him up, dusted him off and we were on our merry way.

[C4S]

Congrats!

You will have lots of fun! I still feel like a new daddy ..... lol

[ganesh]

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What should I use for a camera?

We used Withings Baby monitor. Really happy with it.

[v2kai]

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What should I use for a camera?

At home just use a normal IP camera (something like this https://amcrest.ca/amcrest-1080p-wif...-pt-white.html)
costs less
has the same if not more features than most baby monitors (two way, audio, night vision, alerts etc)
available for viewing across all your devices at home and over the internet if you set it up - tablets, smartphones, PC's etc

added bonus, once your kid grows up you can re-purpose as a security cam for the house

Have to say though the Withings Baby monitor Ganesh mentioned looks like one of the better ones out there that actually has some neat extra features like temp and humidity monitoring over an ipcam

[Darell_n]

I used the Dlink baby cam. Powering from a 5v USB cable and having its own wifi was handy making it portable.

[nickyh]

pick your battles for what you want to spend your money on.

for me, things like car seats, mattress, and crib were not things i wanted second hand. i bought my car seats at Kacz, they were awesome with info and fitting into my cars. i bought my strollers there as well.
you underestimate how much time a baby spends sleeping, you probably spent time researching a good mattress for yourself so why skimp with your kid. i'm not saying there is anything wrong with Ikea or kijiji cribs and mattresses, so buy what works for you and your budget.

forget cute baby outfits and shoes. get as much off kijiji as you can or local buy sell facebook groups.
it's my first stop when i need something for my daughter. most newborn clothing and gadgets are used for such a short amount of time it's not worth buying new. most items should list between 50-75% off retail depending on condition, then you can sell back on kijiji so it's like renting.
get an amazon prime membership and subscribe to their diaper program if you are going to use disposable, they come to the door and you get 20% off, this adds up! stock up on wipes at Costco when they have their sales.

i agree with the comment about not needing a proper change table, 90% of the time i changed my daughter on the floor when i was downstairs with her. i only used it in her room and then i bought an ikea shelf and turned it on its side, i put my contour pad on top - then i had lots of storage cubbies for wipes, diapers, etc.

the best tip i was given. make the crib twice. mattress then waterproof protector, then crib sheet. then another waterproof mattress protector then crib sheet.
when cleaning up puke, poop, or any other fluid, it's nice not to make a bed at 3am, just strip off the mess.
don't waste money on a crib set. seriously, they look cute but they are for you. you kid won't care about a coordinating theme. just get some sheets for the crib and you can't use blankets for newborns.

let the grandparents shop and pay retail if they want to spoil their grandkid, let them and enjoy having new stuff, but kids need a lot of crap at various stages and it adds up.

[timdog]

i've had a couple people ask me advice when they are about to become a parent, and i feel wrong giving advice because we are all just fucking winging it and have no idea what we are doing. not to mention there are 100 different parenting theories that all conflict and all are treated as the best, so it's a crapshoot. you are going to fuck up, and you are going to lose your patience and you are going to have plenty of bad parent moments. if anyone says they dont, they are lying or they are delusional.

my ONE piece of advice I am willing to give, which is more specific and practical than most advice, is: do sleep training. sleepsense is a good, there are other programs too. if you can really commit to it, you'll have your kid sleeping 11-12 hours a night without interruption by the time they are 3-6 months old and good sleep will continue throughout their lives. it's the best gift you can give them, yourself and your wife. every night once they are in bed, we have freedom to do whatever we want. spend time together as a couple without the interruptions of children screaming, get errands done, or just veg out and watch TV. i love being a dad, but sometimes there are hard days. no matter how hard the day is, we always know we will have that down time in the evening.

i realize maybe you were asking for advice around what to buy, etc, but I feel pretty strongly about this, lol

[ExtraSlow]

I'm another sleep training fan too. We did it with our first because she was fucking terrible, and it was magic. The second one wasn't bad at all, so we were lazy and didn't do it, kid is in elementary school and still can't put herself back to sleep without help if she wakes up in the night, which happens a lot.

[sabad66]

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i've had a couple people ask me advice when they are about to become a parent, and i feel wrong giving advice because we are all just fucking winging it and have no idea what we are doing. not to mention there are 100 different parenting theories that all conflict and all are treated as the best, so it's a crapshoot. you are going to fuck up, and you are going to lose your patience and you are going to have plenty of bad parent moments. if anyone says they dont, they are lying or they are delusional.

my ONE piece of advice I am willing to give, which is more specific and practical than most advice, is: do sleep training. sleepsense is a good, there are other programs too. if you can really commit to it, you'll have your kid sleeping 11-12 hours a night without interruption by the time they are 3-6 months old and good sleep will continue throughout their lives. it's the best gift you can give them, yourself and your wife. every night once they are in bed, we have freedom to do whatever we want. spend time together as a couple without the interruptions of children screaming, get errands done, or just veg out and watch TV. i love being a dad, but sometimes there are hard days. no matter how hard the day is, we always know we will have that down time in the evening.

i realize maybe you were asking for advice around what to buy, etc, but I feel pretty strongly about this, lol

just had our baby last week. more details about sleep training please? is sleepsense an app or something? Obviously don't think it will help us now since he needs to feed at night, but would like to look into it now when we can start doing this.

[asp integra]

You can start sleep training around 3 months old. No point trying right now.

[ExtraSlow]

There are a bunch if systems. We did kitty Raymond. I know others who have done others. I don't think one system is much better than another. Or at least I don't know any better.

I did send my wife out of the house for the first night of sleep training so I'd only have to listen to one girl cry all night. I recommend that.

[Prelude_dude]

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i've had a couple people ask me advice when they are about to become a parent, and i feel wrong giving advice because we are all just fucking winging it and have no idea what we are doing. not to mention there are 100 different parenting theories that all conflict and all are treated as the best, so it's a crapshoot. you are going to fuck up, and you are going to lose your patience and you are going to have plenty of bad parent moments. if anyone says they dont, they are lying or they are delusional.

my ONE piece of advice I am willing to give, which is more specific and practical than most advice, is: do sleep training. sleepsense is a good, there are other programs too. if you can really commit to it, you'll have your kid sleeping 11-12 hours a night without interruption by the time they are 3-6 months old and good sleep will continue throughout their lives. it's the best gift you can give them, yourself and your wife. every night once they are in bed, we have freedom to do whatever we want. spend time together as a couple without the interruptions of children screaming, get errands done, or just veg out and watch TV. i love being a dad, but sometimes there are hard days. no matter how hard the day is, we always know we will have that down time in the evening.

i realize maybe you were asking for advice around what to buy, etc, but I feel pretty strongly about this, lol

+1 on this. Sleep training is a godsend.

Speaking from my own experience, my daughter was as picky and troublesome as you can get.

We stocked up on formula and diapers, trying to be as a prepared as possible. She wouldn't take the boob so we relied on forumula; but in terms of brand she ONLY drank the Nestle brand, anything else she wouldn't take. Ended up wasting a bunch of formula. Was able to return the rest.

For some reason she gets a rash when she wore huggies; so we had a ton from baby showers and we bought a bunch our selves (FYI costco is huggies). Mind you we preferred pampers as the shape on pampers we found easier to deal with. Pro tip - superstore will take back any unopened boxes and let you exchange them for a bigger size. I am pretty sure i got some from walmart or other places and superstore just took em and let me exchange them.

So I guess with the above in mind, don't stock up too crazy on one thing. You never know what the baby likes or doesn't like until you try.

Also google was my best friend. As another poster said, we had no idea wtf we were doing with our first. No amount of baby classes that we took prepared us for this. But with google and baby center at your finger tips it definitely made life a lot easier.

[bigbadboss101]

We didn't do sleep training properly so for the longest time one of us had to stay by our daughter for between 30 to 90 minutes for her to fall to sleep. 6 or so weeks ago (she is 2 years and 9 months now) we changed things up and told our girl that we will leave the door to her room open and we will be next door. Now she is ok to be in her bed alone and she will ask us 'is the door open' and then she will fall to sleep in 2 to 30 minutes.