Baby budget: the maternity months

Costing up pregnancy and preparing for first baby

Today I searched for the answer to “how much does a baby cost in the first year” and the answers were ranged between £6,000 and £12,000. This surprised me as my husband and I haven’t really budgeted for baby in his first year apart from some savings we’ll be putting aside for him. We know that we’ll get child benefit allowance from the UK government, but also that we’ll lose some of that in tax.

Hubby and I discussed the question. There was a reference to the freeness of my breastfeeding, contested by the extra cheese sandwiches I’ll probably be demanding. If every two hours baby will feed, every two hours mama will feed. Cheese being now so precious it has extra security protection in Aldi means that I’m pretty sure it’ll cost us more money for food, even if I am breastfeeding.

But we have also been given things that prepare us for the first year with baby, thanks to family. Surely that will reduce this first-year cost. We are also fairly frugal people and unlikely to splurge on expensive outfits baby will wear maybe twice. Will we really spend £6-12,000 over the next year? I don’t know. But if you’re wondering about your spend for your first baby, I thought it would be useful to tot up ours so that you can see what we’ve had to spend, what we’ve been given (things you may need that you can ask for from friends/family or source from the shops) and what we’ve taken a pass on (a heated baby wipe machine, for example). Because I’ve been conscious of what I’ve been spending as a pregnant woman these last 9 months, I’m also going to detail what I’ve spent on maternity wear, vitamins/minerals and the other invisible things women newly pregnant end up buying.

First things first – finding out you’re pregnant £23

The very first thing you notice when you’re trying to get pregnant, is just how much pregnancy tests are. The ridiculousness of it sets in quickly. ‘I’m only going to pee on it and throw it away 2 minutes later’. But in order to know you’re pregnant, you need to take them. I got pregnant 2 months after we started taking it seriously. I already used a free app (My Calendar) to track my periods already, and I used this to then predict my ovulation. I only remember buying 2 packets of pregnancy tests, one at £8 and a digital one with gestation weeks for £15 – I bought this one because I had a feeling I was pregnant and bought it on my way home, with little option in the chemist. They were both ClearBlue brand. Boom I was pregnant, so no more spend on that.

Keeping mama and baby healthy during pregnancy £93.30

It turns out that baby will be sucking all the goodness out of you during pregnancy and you only really get what is left. With that in mind, while I was trying to get pregnant I took Sainsbury’s folic acid (£1.40), then I moved onto prescribed (free for pregnant ladies) folic acid alongside Pregnacare Original (£8 every 3 months) and Seven Seas Omega 3 (£8.50 every 30 days, less days when I ate fish).

The folic acid is recommended by the NHS for baby’s development, which is why it is prescribed to newly pregnant women throughout their first trimester. My midwife organised the prescription and I took it until it ran out. I didn’t second guess this recommendation as I was already aware that this was a norm in England.

I was already aware of Pregnacare (they run adverts on the back of buses) and so had started taking them before I had the recommendation from my midwife. She did not recommend taking Omega 3 (she wasn’t against it either, I hastily add), but because I had seen it packaged with Pregnacare and was vegetarian at the time, I thought it would be best for baby. On the box it says it helps with eye and brain development.

What struck me most about the expense of the vitamins, minerals and omega 3, was how before baby is even born, the difference in babies’ opportunities start to set in. If omega 3 cost £68 over the few months I was taking it, and it helps with brain development, then aren’t we immediately setting other babies up to be less smart because their parents can’t afford such a figure? This has bothered me all the way through my pregnancy. If that box is right and baby’s brain development is important to you, it’s a cost for which you might want to account because it won’t be funded like folic acid.

I’ll also add that I was prescribed aspirin throughout my second trimester up to about week 34 because I’m overweight. It turned out this was also helping my back as it was the only anti-inflammatory I was allowed (encouraged!) to take. My back started to ache 2 days after I stopped taking the aspirin. It probably saved me a few months of paracetamol purchases.

Clothing myself during maternity £384

I’m not a clothes horse and I mainly work from home, so there was not a whole bunch of clothes purchases to account for my growing body.

I bought the following, which have seen me through my pregnancy and will hopefully see me through nursing too:

• Dresses: eBay, £16; Seraphine, £42 & £35; Seraphine/Next, £55
• Black tights 2 pair, M&S, £15
• Maternity and nursing bras: pair, M&S, £30; Figleaves/Simply Be, £22.40
• Maternity and nursing pyjamas, Seraphine, £59
• Maternity and nursing nightie, Seraphine, £19
• Dungarees, Wash/Amazon, £42.99
• Bikini top (for waterbirthing), Simply Be, £8.00
• Maternity and nursing tops; Next, £29.00 & £26.00

I’ve bought these over the course of the last 6 months and the £384 total is surprisingly high. It’s more than I would spend in a normal year on clothing. I have been careful to buy dresses and tops that are all for nursing as well as maternity in order to make them last through all my baby days.

There is nothing on this list that I regret buying, and boy am I getting some good use out of everything. Maybe a third bra was an extravagance but honestly, one cannot live with 2 bras alone. The dresses are so lived in they look older than half of my normal dresses already, and even when the weather became too warm to wear pyjamas in bed, the bottoms came in handy around the house before it was warm enough to lounge in dresses.

I didn’t need to buy any t-shirts solely for maternity as my larger/looser t-shirts still cover my bump, albeit more like a tight over the belly kind of t-shirt, but still, maternity t-shirts not required for me. I don’t wear jeans or trousers much, only had to wear such things with the dungarees, and the final tops I bought are as much for nursing (to wear with skirts once I’m back to my previous size) as I haven’t worn them yet.

But it’s expensive. I could have bought more from eBay or other second-hand places, but while I am used to buying second hand dresses from eBay, I used to stick to certain brands I knew I could fit into well, had a decent quality, and were worth what I paid. It’s been frustrating to find that shops don’t stock maternity wear anymore and everything is online, so I just caved and bought branded maternity wear. So be it. If I have a second baby, I suspect I will pay little to nothing for maternity wear.

Setting up nursery for baby, £155

Baby’s nursery was already set up as my office. It only needed adapting to a nursery. There were a few things we purchased and changed to make it suitable for a young child.

This included putting in curtains rather than just the blinds, and because it had a matching bedding set, I bought that too and put it away for when baby is old enough. Together these were £68 from Next.

We refurbished an old wardrobe, left in our house by the previous owner. Chalk paint, etc from B&Q, £40.

Something I personally wanted to buy was a rocking chair. I didn’t want one of those sweeping ugly nursing chairs that get handed around from family to family, I wanted an attractive rocking chair that I’d be able to keep after nursing ended. To that end, I found a Tutti Bambini with biro ink damage for £73.51 on eBay. Yes, I managed to get the biro off.

I bought a changing mat, £12.99.

And here is where the nursery purchases end. We got a basinet from family, and all the bedding that goes along. I haven’t bought a changing table and will change baby on the floor until I can do it vertically, which my hairdresser assures me I will learn how to do.

Mama pampering, £380.98

I’m not a pampering person and the only thing I’ve spent outside of normal is on getting my hair dyed at a hairdresser rather than bottle dying it every month. Why? I read about the concerns about hair dye and its influence on the baby’s health. I read more and became convinced that the risk was super small. But I still went to the hairdressers anyway because even in the first trimester I couldn’t bend over the bath as I was sickly. I knew I soon wouldn’t be able to lean over the bath because of my belly. Therefore, I reasoned out that during pregnancy, I can treat myself to having my hair coloured professionally. I confess it looks 10 times better and I have someone new in my life to natter about babies with. I also confess, my first visit was to sort my hair out for my wedding, so the expense has been greater than standard visits. Total £359 including the new products I needed to look after lightened hair.

I also bought a nursing pillow as I’d see my friend use one when she was breast feeding. But to be honest, I’d been my favourite cushion throughout pregnancy so its definitely a pampering item, £21.98.

Baby clothes, toys and other items £402.04

We had a lot of clothing passed to us from my hubby’s family, for which we are eternally grateful.

I have bought a small number of clothes as I wanted to exert some control over what my baby is going to wear and be snuggled up with. I wandered into Next and bought a packet of white short sleaved and a packed of coloured fully capped baby clothes, socks and blanket. It came to £114. I also went to Boots and bought disposable newborn nappies, disposable wipes, reuseable wipes, big Sudocrem and Vaseline, breast pads and maternity pads, which cost £53.48. Technically these last 2 are for mama and not for baby, but it was about building up the hospital bag.

We are only set up for the first few days with nappies and are waiting on his size before buying more. It’s my aim to have reuseable or part reuseable nappies but it will come down to practicality and affordability.

I haven’t had to buy a steriliser, breast pump or bottles, baby bath or bouncer as they have come via the family. A pram is also coming from family.

I also bought a couple of small toys from John Lewis £13.60 and a local shop Belly Button £20. We’ve had some toys given to us but they are not suitable for a newborn.

I bought a car seat without the ISOFIX from Amazon £119.99 and a car mirror for seeing baby when he is facing the rear of the car in the first year £12.99, a baby healthcare and grooming kit £15 that includes snot extractor and nail cutters, a nappy changing bag £25.49. A bath thermometer (that also helped me judge my own baths) was £9.50 and swaddling blankets were £17.99.

Things I’m not going to list are the extra food I’ve been eating, the cost of taxis to and from hospital when my car window was broken, cost of parking at the hospital when the appointment was longer than the Sainsbury’s car park up the road allowed, nor the savings from Advantage Card points, Airtime Rewards, or not having to travel to work once I’d got past 6 months pregnant (my actual office is 200 miles from home). These were all choice I made and I could have spend none of this and other choices could have made fewer savings, particularly in retailers.

Total maternity spend

So here is the big total so far for my maternity period: £1,415.21.

In case you are wondering how hubby and I split this cost: hubby and I jointly paid for everything for baby and nursery, and I covered for maternity.

Hubby and I still think we are better off with this money spent then what we would have spent it on, with drinking alcohol being the big one. Hubby gave up alcohol when I did, which was when we found out I was pregnant. Before that we spent a lot of money on wine at home and we went out almost every week. But what we wanted was a baby so we see this as money invested in our family happiness.

So that’s it. That’s roughly the 9 months of being pregnant, costed up but with those missing items you need to find yourself.

I’ll keep you up to date with our baby spend over the next year and if you want to share your experience, pop something in the comments below.

Justine