Sustainable Baby Checklist

I remember walking into a baby store when I was pregnant with my first child. I had no idea why I was there, it just felt like something I should do. The sales attendant took one look at me and proudly handed over a copy of their ‘Baby Essentials Checklist’. The list contained 84 distinct items, with several apparently requiring multiples. The cost alone made my eyes water, and as I stared around at the various shelves and racks brimming with shiny new items, my environmental conscience also went into overdrive. I swiftly left the store feeling completely overwhelmed and questioning how to tackle this whole ‘baby stuff’ situation in a different way.

While I certainly didn’t nail it, there were lots of thing I learnt along the way when it comes to living a bit lighter on the planet with a baby and all of their associated stuff!

• When you need it: Every baby is different and needs such different stuff – if I had sourced everything on the 84 item checklist I would have been lucky to have used half of it. I learnt that the best approach was to start with the absolute basics and then fill in the gaps if and when I needed to.

• Second-hand: The great thing about babies is they don’t use stuff for long so the second-hand market is amazing. Buying second-hand is a brilliant way to keep things in use and is such a great way to save money too. From clothes to pushchairs, change tables to nursery décor – there is a world of pre-loved stuff at dedicated second-hand stores, markets, online and within our social networks.

• Share: We were frequent visitors to our local book and toy libraries. It is a cheap and low impact way to add variety, and I love that I can hand things back when we’re done! We also rented baby capsules and borrowed a bassinet from a friend – as we only needed them for such a short amount of time.

• Reusable: There are lots of reusable options for babies that will save you money and reduce your waste and impact. From cloth nappies and wipes, to reusable breast pads and food pouches – any time I found I was throwing out a lot of something I would question if I could replace it with a reusable option.

There is a trillion dollar marketing industry convincing us to buy stuff that we often don’t need, and it’s no different when it comes to having a baby, in fact it feels like it really ramps up. Simplifying my approach to baby stuff not only saved a heap of time, money and unnecessary impact but it also felt really good.