Exhaustive List of Things You’ll Want To Save For As a First-Time Mom (printable checklist & savings plan)
[Note: This post was originally posted May 12, 2020 on a previous blog of mine]
Long before I ever became pregnant, I wanted to know what I would need to buy for a baby and how much it would cost. Because the internet had SO much info already on this, I ended up making my own list and budget for my future child.
How did I do it? I read baby books and a variety of different types of parenting blogs, watched TONS of YouTube videos reviewing baby products, scrolled through all the baby merchandise websites, and most importantly, talked to all the moms I knew. I gathered the knowledge, decided what was important to me, made a very detailed baby list, and then budgeted it by looking up prices of things. It took a while, but I ended up deciding that the amount I wanted to have in the bank before having a baby was $6000. Hypothetically speaking, that would cover both of our medical expenses, baby things, nursing equipment, and basically anything else baby-related, with some to spare.
Years later when we found out I was expecting, we for sure did not have $6000 saved up for a baby. We were in the middle of saving up for a house, we were saving for a big trip to southeast Asia for my best friend’s wedding, and we had just paid off our new car…in cash. So, needless to say, we found ourselves with less than nine months to get our financial act together if we wanted to stick to the plan.
Now, 14 months postpartum, I’ll admit we never did get our $6000. But I’m relieved to say we didn’t need that much anyway. Most of the things listed below, namely the big-ticket items, were gifted to us from friends and family.
Now, there are lots of different kinds of expectant parents in the world, but two kinds really stand out: the ones who buy nothing before the baby arrives, and the ones who buy everything. I’d like to think I’m somewhere in the middle of this, with a definite slant towards the latter genre. With that in mind, I made you a list of all the items I had and would definitely buy again if I were redoing the "first-time parenting" gig.
Know that this is NOT a “minimalistic” or “essential” list. This list will include:
the items I needed for the baby,
items I wanted for the baby that were helpful, and
items that I ended up needing later on and having to buy later
I will not be including the things that ended up being unnecessary. My goal here is to provide you with an exhaustive list so that you can know what to register for and also what to plan to get after the baby shower is over. I very much had in mind our comfort and convenience when planning to have a baby. This list includes the things a little extra financial planning can give you during such a transitional period in your life.
Let’s get to it.
First things first, the medical expenses: around $3000
My tip with this: Meet with your HR/insurance person at work and get info. If insurance lingo is NOT your thing (it surely isn’t mine), don’t be embarrassed to do what I did, and simply ask them, “Please just tell me how much money I need to have in my bank account to have this baby.” This is what I ended up needing:
Mom's Hospital Fees: $1100
First, the birth was going to cost me $1100, regardless of how I would end up having the baby. This would cover the expense of the birth and our hospital stay.
Baby's Hospital Fees: $1000
Second, I needed to have another $1000 saved for the baby, just in case he needed to go to the NICU. If he didn’t end up needing to go to the NICU after the birth, then that $1000 was gravy for us.
So, I needed to at least have $2100 in the bank before our little guy arrived.
Checkups/Ultrasounds: $200
This didn’t include the little co-payments I had to pay for my routine checkups and ultrasounds. I’d say they probably added up to maybe $200 over the nine months. If you’re even more of a planner than I was, I’d say putting an extra couple hundred away for these little bills can’t hurt.
Prenatal Vitamins: $540 (go with something cheaper)
Medical expenses should also include all the pills you’ll be popping over nine months, too. Like many first-time moms, I tried my best to buy “only the best” of everything. I’m not recommending you to do this, especially not when it comes to prenatal vitamins. Mine were so ridiculously expensive it makes me want to cry thinking of how much I spent on them over the past year. I had to budget $60/month for those pills. If you do go the route I did, $60/month adds up to $540 over the entire pregnancy.
Other medical pills/devices: $270
Also, chances are your doctor will also prescribe you some other supplemental vitamins, such as in my case—iron and vitamin D. Those are not as expensive and you can typically get good deals on these so budgeting $50 for the entire pregnancy is safe. Furthermore, if you are one of the unlucky ones who attains gestational diabetes like I did during your pregnancy, you’ll want to be prepared to pay for all that entails as well—metformin pills, finger prickers (and a stash of extra needles of course), and insulin shots if it gets bad enough like mine did. My insurance covered most of that, but I still ended up paying about $200 out of pocket for what insurance did not cover. So some extra aside for that would be good, too. One last medical expense I can think of is if you have high blood pressure. They’re going to ask you to buy a bp monitor, and that’ll cost you about $70 if you can’t borrow one. So save for that too. It can’t hurt.
I know what you’re thinking… “but I won’t have a high risk pregnancy, an iron-deficiency, gestational diabetes, or high blood pressure.” Believe me, I didn’t think so either. And I ended up having to cut corners to pay for these things throughout those nine months. Saving for these things, though they probably won’t happen to you, can’t hurt you one bit.
These medical expenses added up for me to be over $3000.
Side note: My babe didn’t end up in the NICU so we were able to save that extra $1000 and start his college fund with it.
2. Next, The Nursing Essentials: roughly $400
Okay, getting the baby here is important, but it’s going to be more important that you keep him here once he arrives!
If you plan to breastfeed like I did, read on. But if you already know you’re going the formula-route, I’d research the brands, sign up for coupons, and budget for how much you’ll need to buy. If I had decided to do formula, I would’ve probably tried to save for an entire year’s worth of formula because of how expensive I know it would get! Like seriously, formula can be incredibly expensive.
Okay, so breastfeeding. This could be a very, very cheap option. I mean, literally speaking, your body does all the producing. You don’t have to purchase anything at a store to do that. However, there are so many wonderful products out there that made my nursing experience more convenient, tolerable and maybe even enjoyable at times for someone like me that didn’t love it but rather did it out of commitment to my son’s welfare. Here’s a list of nursing items I used and loved:
Good breast Pump – around $200
I used this Medela one because it had a travel bag and it works great but next time I'm totally going hands free with this one.
Extra bottles and nipples in a variety of sizes - $25
We went with Philips Avent.
Disposable nursing pads - $14 per 100
These are probably not great for the environment but they were nice to have when the reusable ones were all soiled.
Reusable nursing pads - $13
I found these to be more comfortable sometimes but not always great at doing their job during the first couple weeks.
Nipple cream - $11
I don't care what you're thinking, you're going to need this.
Gel Pads for pain relief - $10
I used these Lansinoh gel pads for relief the first few months and they were honestly lifesavers.
Milk storage bags - $15
We used these. You can totally get reusable ones or glass bottles if you're plastic-free, but these worked well because they would lay flat in our freezer and I was making tons of them.
Bottle cleaner - $5
We used this one by Dapple Baby.
Bottle brush - $5
We used this Munchkin one.
Nursing pillow - $40
I had a love-hate relationship with this Boppy pillow at first, then at 3 months I realized I'd been missing out when carpal tunnel forced me to use it every day. It takes practice getting used to it but honestly a great product.
Tons of nursing bras, for heaven’s sake. - $17
This is my favorite one that I got by Motherhood Maternity.
Some items I didn’t end up needing were nursing clothes. I just never ended up wearing any of them really.
3. The Nursery and Baby Stuff: $2500
For me, this was the most exciting part of planning for a baby. I finally had a reason to go nuts at the baby section at Target!
I’ll admit I had rather expensive plans—plans we wouldn’t have gone through it had family not offered to help. I wanted a plush rocking chair (which my in-laws bought), an upholstered crib (which my parents bought), and a beautiful matching dresser (which my brother bought). In all reality, if saving money is your thing and you don’t give a fig about home decor, then you can totally make do with a Pack-n-Play and you surely can change your baby’s diapers on the floor. But if you’re like me, below are the big-ticket items that I felt were 100% worthwhile getting.
Crib: $150 (on sale on Wayfair—be sure to consider getting one that grows with your child). I just had to have an upholstered one but there was no way I’d spend over a $1000 for my dream one from Restoration Hardware. So my next bet was Wayfair. This one turns into a toddler bed.
Dresser/changing table: $300
Forget getting an actual changing table. Get a dresser that they can use when they’re older and put a changing pad on top of it. Let me tell you—not having to lean over far to change them is wonderful. I use this for 98% of diaper changes.
Rocking chair: $200
I felt like this was the biggest and most unecessary luxury item I wanted but family bought it for us anyway. It has turned out to be one of our favorite places to be with Charlie.
Diaper pail: $65
This one by Munchkin is great because it looks sleek, is sturdy, and hides the smell of foul diapers because it comes with lavender scented pods. Costs more than the standard Diaper Genie but we really like it.
Nurseries are made up of more than just the big items, however. You’ll also need:
Crib mattress: $64
We chose this hypoallergenic one after MUCH research.
Crib protector - $13
You'll want one of these.
Crib sheets (get a few for the future “sick” nights) $1
Dresser changing pad $30
my sister-in-law gave us her old one!
Changing pad cover - $17
these ones by Burt's Bees are great.
And if you want to take extra measures of safety, we highly recommend these:
Moving on to the things you’ll want for your baby:
Burp cloths
My mom bought us a TON of these Anakku ones from Malaysia.
A few lightweight blankets - $20
Muslin is the way to go.
Pacifier - $15
These BIBS ones are beautiful and they worked well.
Pacifier clip - $15
Huge fan of teething beads so I bought a pacifier clip with beads on them. Ours was by Tulamama. A clip is a great way to make sure the pacifier doesn't get lost.
Baby wash/shampoo - $8
People will PROBABLY get you these at your baby shower if you have one, but it won't hurt to have some ready. We use this one by Babyganics right now.
Wash cloths - $6
Towels
People will probably get these for you, too. I actually just use our hand towels to dry baby boy off these days.
Baby bath - $20
OK, so this was something I was very picky about. I didn't want a separate tub for the baby, nor did I think we could use the sink because all of ours are too small. So I got this baby bath support by Angelcare instead and I am SO happy I did. It's lightweight and plastic and dries off super easily. There is NO fabric on it which is probably my favorite part about it. Charlie absolutely loves it and still lets us bath him on it even though he's 14 months old now.
Baby grooming kit - $8
This is an actual necessity. I know people cut their baby's nails with regular clippers but the thought of it FREAKS me out.
Swaddles - $100
I say $100 because we are Team SWADDLE and absolutely love the HALO Sleepsacks. I wish I had saved up and bought them in all the sizes before I had Charles so that they would've been ready whenever he outgrew one. Instead, he wore them till they got too tight because I couldn't find time to go to Target to get the next size up. You can get them on Amazon now though, too. Get them in all the sizes! They're amazing.
Also great to keep on hand:
Baby Tylenol or Advil ($5)
Vitamin D (if your baby is breastfed, your doctor might recommend this)
Vaseline and gauze (if you decide to have your baby boy circumcised)
Neosporin (in case your baby’s belly button gets a little infected after the cord falls off)
In this section, I also want to include diapering items. This is definitely one of the bigger costs of having a baby. We had no real interest in cloth diapering, so we went the disposable route, which as you probably already know, is the more costly route. Do your research on what kinds of diapers you’d like to use, and plan a backup in case your baby has a reaction to the kind you pick. I’ll admit that I planned to buy only the much admired Honest diapers for my son before he arrived, but I changed my mind after our baby shower, when we received every other brand of diaper under the sun. The nice thing about getting a variety of different kinds is that you get to try all of them. We quickly discovered which ones we didn’t like and which ones were acceptable. We were thankful our baby didn’t have a reaction of any of them.
Another thing to note about pre-buying diapers is that people will often tell you not to buy any newborn diapers. I am here to tell you to PLEASE BUY SOME. Just a small pack of 30 or whatever. Even a nine-pounder could wear them for the first week at least. I am so thankful I at least bought one pack of newborns, because my baby was itty bitty and fit into newborn diapers for the first month of his life! So, my advice is to not buy a ton of newborn sizes, but at least have some on hand.
If I were doing this all over again, I’d buy a couple boxes of each size up to size 3. That’s about $25 a box, meaning $150 on diapers just to get started. You can always run out to buy more or order some on Amazon, and if your kid doesn’t end up using a box you can always return them (places like Walmart won’t even ask for a receipt).
In case you were wondering about what brand we have now settled on since the diapers from the shower are now all gone, we’ve fallen in love with the Hello Bello diapers from Walmart. They boast being plant-based and safer for your child. But we bought them because they’re so darn cute and Charles doesn’t care what kind of diaper he wears as long as it’s changed regularly.
The other item that comes with diapers is wipes. We had a “diaper raffle” game at our shower and EVERYONE brought us wipes. They lasted us FIVE MONTHS. However, a big box of wipes will be more than enough to get you started. So about $20 for that box of wipes.
Okay so that covers all the baby things you’ll need to keep the baby sanitary. Here are some big-ticket items you’ll need also:
Travel system (includes infant carseat and stroller)- $370
We opted for one that transformed into a double stroller later in case we decided to have another kid down the road.
Lightweight stroller - $170
Forget the old school umbrella stroller. If you haven't registered for this yet, register for the GP Pockit Stroller now. It fits into my LV Neverfull, y'all.
Stroller and carseat carriers (even if you only travel every now and again like we do) - $50 total
Diaper bag - $50
Believe me, I wanted one from Nordstrom. And Caleb was totally on board with buying me one! But I hated the idea of having to buy a completely different one so that Caleb would feel comfortable carrying one around when he needed to, too. So we picked this Eddie Bauer one out together. Honestly, though, I only use this when we go on long trips. I fit his diapers and wipes in my purse.
Baby carrier - $30
I wanted a Baby Tula but it was just too expensive at the time. I ended up settling for this and we actually love it.
Baby swing - $150
I’ve heard so many people say that the swing is unnecessary but WE. LOVED. OURS. You NEED a place to put that baby down in your living area. And most babies won’t thank you for putting them down on something that stays still. This Graco swing moves front-back and side-to-side, and also vibrates and becomes a detachable baby bouncer. 100% would buy again.
Something portable for the baby to sleep in like a Moses basket or Dock-a-tot. This was something I did not have but would definitely recommend. We had several near-accidents on the couch and so next time around, I’m getting this one by Plum and Sparrow - $145
4. The Extras: at least a couple hundred dollars for convenience' sake
Here’s where you plan for the things you forget to plan for usually… at least that’s what happens with us. *facepalm*
This includes the baby photography session you want, the maternity photoshoot you want, and the birth photoshoot you might want. These things can become costly, but for us were so worth it. On top of that, you can also plan to pay for the prints you’ll want afterward!
This category also includes the hosting of any visiting family members that might come, such as a mom or mother-in-law who will stay and help you when the baby gets here. It costs money to stock up on food before the baby arrives. We put aside a chunk for “take-out” and “order-in” nights, and we were very glad we did because I certainly didn’t feel like cooking some nights that first month.
Last of all, The Extras also include a nice chunk of change to help you and the hubs get through the days at the hospital. Believe me, hospital food—as tolerable as yours might be—will still get old by the second day. Caleb and I put aside a couple hundred extra dollars for food runs, coffee runs, and donut runs. It was WONDERFUL.
So, there’s my list for you. This leads to a whopping $6000ish pricetag, which sounds CRAZY. But again, this is just for the purposes of PLANNING. You don't NEED most of these items! Instead of going out and buying them, consider adding these things to your own registry first and seeing what you get at the shower first.
You can print out this modifiable First Time Parent's List & Savings Plan I’ve made if that will help you. I’ve added extra space so you can add things to it if need be! Let me know if I’ve left anything out!
Happy Baby Planning.
Grace
#firsttimemom #baby #newborn #registry #babyregistry #Target #Amazon
