Diaper Bag Evolution

I have had only a few diaper bags so far as I didn't want to be one of those moms who changed diaper bags every so often. My first diaper bag was actually a gift from my officemates, a Skip Hop Duo Diaper Bag which was on my baby gift registry.

I loved this bag as it had easy access pockets so you didn't have to rummage in the bag to get bottles or milk powder or wipes. The color was also quite neutral so even my husband could carry it and not think it was too girly.

I received a diaper bag as well from another set of officemates (yes, I had generous officemates). It was a Fleurville Diaper Bag, but as it was much smaller than the Skip Hop bag, so we only used it for those rare occasions when we would step out of the house for short errands and didn't need a whole arsenal of baby stuff.

Last year, I gave birth to my second daughter and for awhile we were using separate diaper bags for the two children. But then it seemed a bit bulky to be carrying too many bags when we could pare down and just have one big carry-all.

It was at this point that I started looking at totes and fell in love with the DwellStudio Madison Diaper Bag. It would be the first diaper bag we would buy ourselves, but at SGD150 retail price, it was a bit expensive. So I started to look for the bag on eBay. I was looking for the Transportation design but eventually ended up with the Baby Dots Chocolate design, which was a steal at USD50. And quite spacious too since it contains all our to-go baby essentials which include: 2 hats, 1 sunglass, 2 sets of clothes, 2 sets of diapers, wipes, changing pad, nappy cream, biscuits, water bottle, milk bottles and milk powder, bibs, umbrella, baby sling, toys and books.

  

I would never have looked at another diaper bag again. Except that I was browsing through baby items at the Boutiques at Fort Canning yesterday and found this.

The Tribe Singapore Sling bag. I like that it is quite roomy, has tons of zippered compartments and comes with removable nylon pouches for miscellaneous baby stuff. You also don't have to worry about your stuff being out there for all the world to see since everything is zipped up and tucked away. Best of all, the leather is so yummy and the cognac color so lovely I would love to carry it even as a regular bag. At SGD649 though, this is more of a want rather than a need. Chalk another one up for the wish list.

For information on the tribe bags, go to www.tribebags.com.

Baby clothes for a song

I have been on a baby clothes embargo ever since we came back to Singapore. What with the new clothes gifted to the kids over Christmas as well as the clothes I bought for them in the various bazaars I've been to, they actually still have a lot of new clothes to wear. However, I couldn't help buying a couple more new ones (for future use) when we went shopping recently at Song and Song in Lucky Plaza. The clothes are quite cheap (think 5 dollars per top!) and if you take the time to go through the racks there are a couple of really cute ones.

Here's what I bought for the kids:

I also saw some really nice boys' long-sleeved tees with robots and dinosaurs but unfortunately the sizing was either too large for my 6 month old or too small for my 2 year old. I was only able to get this bear on the scooter tee in the right size. Still, quite a nice haul for only 20 dollars.

  

Feeding Essentials

Time really flies. It seemed like I just gave birth some time ago and now my baby has started eating semi-solids. I was a bit hesitant to do it as she's only 5 months old, but the doctor said she was quite ready and it will likely help with her spit-up problem (or 'lungad' in Tagalog) since she's much more likely to absorb the semi-solids better than her milk.

And so we bought/brought out the essentials to begin our feeding adventure:

1. Bumbo chair - We left our bumbo chair in Manila and so had to buy a used one via craigslist for SGD20. Still much cheaper than the SGD70-80 retail price for a new one. We didn't buy a feeding chair as we already have a booster chair on hand for when she grew older and could sit on a chair without needing support. We also felt the bumbo was much better at helping her sit properly.

Andi in her yellow bumbo chair

2. Plastic bowl and spoon - We bought a plain plastic set from Pigeon as she'll only have one semi-solid meal for the first few weeks and bought a set of plastic bowls and spoons from Munchkin for when she's older and will have solid meals 3x a day.

Andi's Pigeon feeding set. The space on the left allows you
to mash food and then transfer on the main bowl (here shown
with pureed broccoli, yum!)

3. Philips Steamer/Blender - This is hands down the best investment you can make if you plan to give homemade food to your baby. We bought ours at a baby fair more than 2 years ago when we had our first baby and we plan on using it now for our second one. It's so convenient because you don't need to use different machines. Just steam food first, flip the container and then blend. So easy. In fact, we only gave bottled baby food a handful of times to our first born and that was when we would go out and needed something convenient and easy to prepare.

Our 2 year old Philips steamer blender with Philips VIA storage cups

4. Philips VIA storage system - We bought these to store homemade food in the freezer.

5. Bibs - Thankfully we had tons of bibs left over from having our firstborn and all of these were gifts from family and friends. If there's one thing I didn't buy which we had tons of, it was bibs. However, what we had were cloth ones and for the early weaning stage and even much later, it's much more convenient to use plastic bibs.

Switching to cloth diapers

Having a second baby suddenly makes you realize how expensive it is to have children. With the first, you usually spare no expense and you try to get the best of everything (i.e. the best hospital for when the baby is born, the best healthcare, new clothes, educational toys and DVDS, the works...). But with two kids and having them so close to each other (one is 2 years old and the other is 5 months old now), it feels like money just keeps flying out our pockets, and so we decided to see where we could save in terms of child-related expenses.

One financial drain we identified was DIAPERS, in particular, disposable diapers. We went through all the cost-saving techniques such as switching from premium to economy brands, buying on promotion, buying in bulk when on promotion, and sometimes having one premium and one economy brand and only using the premium brand for nighttime use. Regardless of what we did though, we were still spending 3-4 packs of diapers every month and spending about 50-60SGD (roughly P1650-1980). And that was when we only had one child.

So with baby number two, we explored using cloth diapers. We researched online and found recommendations from mommy bloggers about certain brands of diapers as well as the different types of diaper systems. One of the more helpful blogs for us was pinoybaby.com which incidentally has an online store selling cloth diapers (full disclosure: this is where we eventually ordered our cloth diapers).

After considering the different diapering systems, we eventually gravitated toward AIOs which as described by pinoybaby.com are 'All-in-one diapers, no more missing inserts; no more stuffing; no separate layers. The diaper looks almost exactly like a disposable in that everything is one piece'. Now the first few brands of AIOs we became aware of were imported brands such as Charlie Banana and the prices were quite prohibitive, think P1000 per cloth diaper. And considering that experts recommend you buy somewhere between 15-20 diapers (depending on how often your child poops) it made me wonder how on earth we could possibly save money if we were to buy these things. Fortunately, we found a cheaper alternative to these imported brands in a brand called next9 which is local and much much cheaper since they sell at P1000 for a pack of 3 diapers.

next9 cloth diapers

We eventually ordered 5 packs of diapers (3 diapers per pack) for a total of 15 diapers in four cheery colors (blue, orange, green and yellow). We also specifically chose one size fits all diapers so we didn't have to change and buy more cloth diapers as the baby grew. The various snaps on the diapers could be adjusted to fit the baby as it grew bigger.

Total cost = P5,000

At the end of February, we would have been using cloth diapers for 3 months and would have saved P4950 which is roughly the cost of the diapers. In effect, the diapers would have already paid for themselves and it would be pure savings from hereon out. Not bad at all. Sure we still use disposable at times but only once a day for night time use and for occasional out of home jaunts.

This is one of the best money saving tips we can give for families looking for ways to cut on household costs. It may seem a bit expensive when you compute the upfront costs, but it more than makes up for it in the long run.