How much does a baby cost in the first six months?

As we’ve hit the 6 month mark and I start preparing to go back to work, it’s got me thinking about money – I haven’t been totting up how much we’ve spent on baby W as we go so though I’d try and remember it all and probably give myself a heart attack in the process…

Nursery

Cot bed – Mothercare summer oak – £160

Chest of drawers/changing unit – Mothercare Summer Oak – £200

Mattresses – £100 (1 for cot bed, 1 for moses basket)

Bedding – £20? (1 set for cot bed, 1 set for moses basket)

Wall stickers – £40

Lamp – £20

Sleeping

Gro bags – £40

Ewan the dream sheep – £40

Tranquil Turtle sleep aid – £40

Angelcare monitor – £80 (this is one of the worst decisions I made, hardly used it and now W rolls around rendering the sensor mat pointless!)

Bathtime

Bath, duck thermometer, sponge support, sponges – £40?

Play-time

Fisherprice Woody friends bouncer – £30

Fisherprice rainforest playgym – £40

Fisherprice rainforest jumperoo – £70

Some Lamaze toys – £20

Snug chair – £30

Changing equipment

Changing bag – £30

Changing mat – £5

Nappies – now I reckon on average we got through a box of Pampers every month – we used more at the start when we were changing nappies every half hour, but we now only change his nappy a couple of times during the day and once at night – so I estimate we’ve spent £90 max

Baby wipes – we use Huggies pure wipes and, as with nappies, stock up on boxes during supermarket baby events – I reckon we’ve spent a max of £55 here (that’s assuming 1 box per month when actually I think we’ve used a lot less but hard to remember)

Bepanthen nappy cream – £20ish

Nappy bags – £10ish (again, we use far less of these now but when we do, I prefer the thicker, scented, more expensive ones!)

Feeding

Tommee tippee steriliser kit (inc bottles etc) – £70

Travel steriliser – £12

Breast shells – £13

Breast pads – I have no idea how much I’ve spent on these – £40?

Breast milk storage bags – again no idea – £40?

We now do combination feeding and buy ready-prepared Aptamil milk for the evening feed – I reckon about a tenner a week for the last 3 months, plus a bit more for day feeds when someone else is looking after him –  £120 (ouch!!)

Weaning

3x books – £20

Bibs – £4

Highchair – not bought yet but plan to buy the Ikea one at £18

Food – as we’re doing baby-led weaning, we’re not spending any extra on food but I have bought a few other bits ‘n’ bobs e.g. baby rice, baby rice cakes etc – £5

Cutlery set and dinky cup – £10

Teething

Sophie le Giraffe x 2 (we lost 1!) – £34

Then I reckon we spent £30 on Calpol, Nurofen, Anbesol, Bonjela, teething powders and a couple of teething chewy things

 

Clothes

I like to think I’ve saved in this area where others might go mad!

Before baby W arrived we spent about £50 on neutral, newborn babygros etc

0-3 months – we got through purely on gifts and the stuff we bought before he was born (and it was a hot summer so he mostly lived in vests!)

3-6 months – got through on gifts, hand-me-downs from a friend and a £20 haul from an NCT nearly new sale, oh and £40 on Next sleepsuits! And a Halloween outfit for £6!

Now as he’s getting into 6-9 months, I’ve just spent £28 on a snowsuit and £13 on a Tesco outfit, £21 in Mamas and Papas, and £13 on another NCT nearly new haul.

 

Other

Photo shoot – we spent about £200 on a newborn photo shoot (I know it’s a lot but we bought all of the digital copies as opposed to just buying a small number!)

Classes – baby massage (£50), tinytalk sign class (£55), 20 x swimming lessons (£200) mother and baby yoga (£96 for 12 lessons)

Thank you cards – (using photos from the shoot) – £50

What we didn’t have to pay for:

Bugaboo cameleon – we bought this second-hand for £350 but our parents kindly bought it for us. Oh that’s just reminded me, I bought my other half a Babybjorn miracle carrier = £70

Moses basket and car seat were kindly lent to us by friends

Breast pumps – I was gifted a manual, and electric pump

So…… the grand total is…..

 

£2,518!

Does this surprise you?! Did I forget anything? How much do you think you spent in the baby’s first six months?!