Settling Into Life With Two Boys

Thanks for all the congratulations and well-wishes on the birth of our second little guy!  We’re doing great.  We’re settling into life with two boys, and so far, it’s awesome.  As far as frugality goes, we’re keeping on with our usual path.  One nice thing about having two boys is that we have boat loads of hand-me-downs from our older son that will be perfect for our new little guy.  I had planned to re-use a lot of the clothes even if we had a girl, but now we can re-use everything.  Several people have asked us what we need for the baby, and I honestly can’t think of anything at all.  The stuff that we used with our son went into the basement when he outgrew it, and we also learned with him that we didn’t need nearly as much stuff as the baby stores would like us to believe.

Our son is 11 days old now, and I noticed today that our credit card statement shows almost no activity at all over the last 11 days.  Having a newborn is a nice excuse to stay home, cuddle with your babies, and not go anywhere.  Which means no spending money, and that’s a nice bonus.

Last year, one of my friends decided to try cloth diapers, and bought a gently used set of all-in-one cloth diapers that she found on Craigslist.  She tried them for a few days, but decided she preferred disposables after all.  Then, being the awesome friend she is, she gave me the whole bag when I got pregnant!  We bought one package of disposables to use for the first few days after our son was born.  We wanted to keep things as simple and easy as we could at first, and delaying washing diapers for a few days made sense.  But by the time we used up the disposables, I was itching to get back to cloth.  We noticed that the disposables leaked a lot, which doesn’t happen with our cloth diapers.  And I hated seeing the garbage can fill up with diapers.  So now we’re back in the world of diaper washing, and we’re loving the all-in-one diapers.  They grow with the baby, so they should work for a good long while.

I just bagged up all my maternity clothes to give to my friend who gave us the diapers, since she’s hoping to have another child eventually.  I swapped them for all of the regular clothes that I hadn’t worn since last summer, and it felt like I was getting all new stuff – no shopping needed :)

It is nice to start out this time with some of the baby stuff that we didn’t get until our first son was older.  The Moby Wrap has already come in very handy, as has the ring sling that my mother and I made a few years ago.  Carrying our first son in a sling worked great, and I did  it until he was nearly two.  So this time around, I started right from the start, and our baby seems to like it as much as his big brother did.

I hope you’re all having a good week.  And while we’re on the topic of babies, let’s all send lots of good birthing vibes to Gina – aka the feminist Breeder – who is anxiously awaiting the birth of her baby girl.