Should we buy a brand new baby set for the nursery?

Question

My sister is having a baby and has been given a lot of things from hand-me-downs. She ended up with two cribs and offered one to me since I am expecting in March. My boyfriend really wants to buy all new stuff for the baby since its our first, and wants to nursery to be all new and nice. Not sure what i should do, it would save us some good money.

Answer 1

Take it.  You won't regret it.

Answer 2

i would take a peek at the crib before you go ahead and turn it down.  It may be just what you're looking for.  Even though my cousin offered me their crib, my parents offered to buy the baby all new nursery furniture, so I opted to go with new.

Answer 3

Take that crib!! Unless it's broken or you're independently wealthy you won't regret it! Baby stuff gets expensive and you can always get a nice, new crib set to decorate it with. Or, you can sand it and paint it to match whatever you want it to!

Answer 4

It's really personal choice. It's nice to have all new things for your baby but like you said it will help save some major money.  Cribs aren't cheap.  I would suggest borrowing her crib and using that money for the million other things you will need.

Answer 5

I just had my first baby and everyone wanted to give us soo much stuff they had. Which was really nice. But we had agreed since this was our first we wanted to buy new things. Things that we wanted for our baby. But you could agree to buy some things and get others from your sister.  

Answer 6

If it's a crib, there are certain things to look for. There shouldn't be any decorative cut-outs on the head/foot boards, the slats should not be farther apart than the width of a soda can, etc. Do some research into crib safety. We were lent/given THREE cribs (for our twins) and we use the two that sort of match and have wheels. We offered the third one to a friend who turned it down. We can probably sell it on Craigslist for $80...so, it's their loss. Brand new those cribs probably go for more than $300.

Aside from the crib safety (newer cribs are obviously better as new safety standards arise) you should be careful about car seats. Infant carriers are probably OK to get used if they are not that old because most are not used for that long. We got a free one and bought a used one, then went to a hospital that did free car seat installations/inspections. The guy looked at the manufacture date and condition and told us they were good. He also told us which seat he prefers for older babies (Britax Marathon, because he believed that babies should be in rear seated car seats for as long as possible and the Marathon has a high weight limit). I bought two of them from Amazon...Britax had a "save 20% when you buy two seats" deal, which worked out great since we have twins, though if you have two cars, you might consider two anyway.

Save your money otherwise. Changing table? Who cares if it's used?! We use a dresser with a pad on it. We bought a used "glider" chair off craigslist for $10. It's great and I'm glad the $200 for a new one stayed in my pocket.

Your baby will not care about his/her room and furniture. Your friends probably aren't going to spend much time in the kids room. So it's all up to you. Is nice new furniture worth the money? Up to you.

Remember (aside from crib safety) reusing furniture is good for your finances in these rotton economic times, plus it's environmentally friendly to re-use, plus when you are done with the furniture, you can give it away (or sell it) and not regret the fact that you spent $1000 on furniture that you only used for a year or two!

Answer 7

maybe you can ask him to go with you and look at the crib. If it's in good shape maybe he will want it and you guys can buy matching furniture to go with it. For a decent crib you will probably be spending $200-$300, if not more. My husband and I  got a brand new crib, changing table, and dresser and it was almost $900 for all of that. Plus you will need to buy mattresses, changing pads, and sheets for both along with the blankets and bumpers and other necessities you may be looking to spend more than $1000 on the room alone. I know you know this but maybe it will help to spell it all out for him like this.  We bought a hand me down crib for our second daughter along with the mattress and sheets for a total of $100 from a friend and got a second car seat from my brother in law. The only thing left for us to look for is a double stroller. Congratulations on your pregnancy!! I wish you luck.

Answer 8

I was the same way. I bought everything new, except the crib though. A friend of my dad had a crib that was brand new and his son never got to use it (they were divorced so he didn't end up having his son very often at all). My fiances mom always for some reason insisted on giving us used stuff though? We never use(d) any of it though. We just kind of tuck it away somewhere. We had a few car seats given to us too, one was new and in the box, but we just gave that to my uncles step-daughter who's expecting. I thought the same way though, new baby, new things. And so did my family.

If it's a good crib, use that if you want.

Good luck and congratulations!!

Answer 9

If you're being offered stuff for free, i would say take it. Put the money away for Christmas...birthday...college anything else that might be more beneficial than having brand new stuff that the baby will only use for a VERY short time. With my first i had everything handed to me and it was great to gt hand-me downs because we were able to afford a lot of small thing (diapers and toys) that we may not have been able to other wise. This time we don't know anyone with a baby and we were sure we were done so stupid us gave everything away. Plus this is a girl and our first was a boy. We had nothing at the beginning of this pregnancy...we've about $2000 in because we have had to buy EVERYTHING brand new. It can get pricey fairly quick.