Parenting Tips for Cheapies

• 

  Makmak on 04/05/2026 - 09:22

  +4

  The puppy pads from Kmart are great for newborns up until toddler. Keep some in your nappy bag, your car, and your change table.

  Second hand is great. Depending on the items. Toys and furniture can have some good finds. People just want it out of their house, and they will be in decent condition due to minimal use (unless they're hand-me-downs being handed down for the nth time).

  We went with a second hand pram. Brand new can be expensive, but second hand you find some decent prices and the parts for them are easy to pick up (an inner tube I picked up from AliExpress - and I used a leather bike handle wrap for the handle which was SO much better than the crappy foam that was on it - which had previously disintegrated anyway). Just make sure the frame and fabric components are still in good nick - no rust and not thread bare.

  Car seats - buy new, but wait for sales (I'd recommend those 360 spin ones - save yourself a headache trying to get a small child into a fixed position one).

  Clothing has been a mixed bag. We've gotten the odd great find from those bundles from TradeMe and Marketplace - but more often than not it's stretched, threadbare, or just…not right. For about the same price you can find clothing out of Postie, Kmart or Warehouse. Even better is watch their clearance sales for out of season clothes - and buy the next size up for the next season and hold on to it. Last year prior to summer, I bulk bought some toddler sweats from Kmart for $2 a peice. Both in size and up sized. Great for messy daycare. We even got some nice hoodies from AliExpress (just make sure what you're getting is cotton, not that polyester junk).

  We picked up some of those cloth baby carry wrap things from TM for like $10-15. They were branded one's that retail for insane prices ($80-100 two years ago). I think we used them maybe twice?

  We never used re-usable nappies. When we enquired about it to other experienced parents prior to our own child, they always gave the same response - they tried reusable to be environmentally responsible, but they always gave up due to being time-poor and mentally exhausted so would default to disposable. So we took the implied hint.

  I think that's all off the top of my head.

  • 

    moreroastpork on 04/05/2026 - 10:45

    +2

    I concur with all the above. These are gold pro-tips.

• 

  Ice222 on 05/05/2026 - 14:41

  +2

  I have 3x kids 5 and under and my experience seems to differ a lot from those mentioned by others above, often exact opposite:
  - Puppy pads, I had some but basically never used them. I was taught to put a new nappy under the dirty nappy when changing baby so spillage while changing was rare. My change mat is a regular waterproof change mat, and when out I used a reusable multipurpose mat similar to the mum2mum mats.
  - Cloth Nappies, theses only work well if you basically do laundry daily, cause anything soaked in urine and not rinsed will get smelly fast and the smell might not even wash out. I only used reusable swim nappies since we would be guaranteed to be doing a load with the whole fam's swim gear and towels anyway.
  - Disposable nappies, I commend people who do reusables but I couldn't myself. I buy the cheapest nappies and they work out well for me. 20c per nappy for my 3MO 40c per nappy for my 2YO and we only change each around 4x a day so that's less than $1 per day per child. Does it add up over time? Yes, but it saves me the upfront cost of cloth and save me more than 15min per day of additional laundry and mental load that I would not normally do think it's a worthwhile expense.
  - Nappy bins, I used disposable nappies and disposable bags, most dirty nappies, including baby poos, go in the bags till bag is full before I take it out, once they are older and starts solids, I find that nothing contains the smell fully, so I just take those straight to outside bin. Many places you go such as restaurants or other services might not have a nappy bin so I find carrying around disposable bags is very handy. I don't like wet-bags because if I wait till I get home I'd probably forget about it. Bibs, utensils etc. I always clean on the spot after a meal by using wet wipes before putting away.
  - 2nd hand stroller, this I actually agree with, strollers depreciate the moment you buy them new, even unopened in box you'd likely get 3/4 of the buying price back if lucky. Just get one you think you like the features of, and after using it for real, you will quickly realise what you actually need. E.g. bassinet attachment was useless for me on stroller as they'd slide around when I'd navigate bumps and kerbs and they'd rather sit in a capsule. However my kids did like the stroller bassinet when I used it as a Moses basket at home.
  - Carseats, I'd actually buy carseats used rather than new as for me 90% of my driving is low-speed short-distance so I was after utility (as part of travel system) rather than in-car safety. I got a 2nd hand recline-able capsule and base for cheap. The limits being 13kgs/80cm I make tiny kids, so mine were all able to use capsule for ages - in fact my 2YO is in a full seat now but could still fit the capsule limits. IMO a travel system capsule is even easier and cheaper than rotating carseats and fits most cars.
  - Rotating Seats, are notoriously bad for not fitting all cars, plus you're meant to stop using isofix when kid plus seat exceeds 33kg combined - given that most weigh more than regular seats can't be rotated once you hit the limit and need a belt install, it means it's only useful for slightly longer than a capsule. Plus my kids all learnt how to climb into their seats by 2YO so the rotation feature is unnecessary then anyway.
  - Buying New, farmers has nursery sales multiple times a year where they do 40-50% off big ticket items. I got a brand new Joie travel stroller for about $270 and it ticks all my boxes, while even 2nd hand branded strollers like nuna, yoyo or even edwards and co are usually more than $300. Sometimes new can be a cheap option.

  As for the person who said "you can buy a lot of things but you can't buy sleep" I agree, however, my experience is, if you have a poor sleeper, nothing you can buy can really fix it. I've had normal sleepers, I've had bad sleepers the bad ones would not sleep in a swing, to white noise a rocker or another other gadget - all she wanted was to sleep on me. So the only useful "gadget"? A carrier. Join a carrier club and try hiring before you buy.

• 

  spam on 04/05/2026 - 09:26

  +1

  Congratulations. Exciting times.

  If you haven't already, what we did was renting the capsule instead of purchase. It was ~$50 for 6 months years ago so not sure what's the rate now.

  Keep an eye on nappies special from various supermarkets (and chemist warehouse) and stock up if able.

  Unless you're an active family, we found that we don't use stroller in the first 3 months and we were taking a conservative approach of not heading anywhere with the baby until his first vaccination.

  On the puppy pads; that's exactly what we did for the changing table, under his bassinet. Cheaper than the actual baby pad and do the same thing. We bought the pack from Kmart.

  On disposable vs reusable; have a feel of what works. For us the first few weeks is handy to have disposable as they go through nappies a lot (10+ a day/night). Usually after 4-6 weeks is when the nappy usage is settling a bit so could try reusable if you want to.

• 

  ABCDEFG on 04/05/2026 - 13:49

  +1

  Congratulations! We have a 9mo and had a lot of the same questions.

  We do reusables at home during the day and disposables overnight/outside the house. Same with cloth vs disposable wipes. Like others have said I think this is less of a cost choice and more about lifestyle. We're just trying to minimise our landfill contributions 😅

  We've used puppy pads/blue pads since day one. I've found the cheapest option is to pick them up from Temu when Shopback has a decent cashback offer. Same with nappy pail bags.

  With hardware (travel cot, push chair etc) my method has been to buy highly rated stuff used rather than cheaper stuff new. The good quality items, if well cared for, should last through and be resalable when we're done with them.

• 

  Natashatanya on 05/05/2026 - 09:02

  +1

  Congrats!

  You can try cubs.co.nz for pre-owned high quality baby gear.

  I second using a towel on top of a baby change mat. We tried the puppy change pads and towels/old pre-folds - much preferred the fabric for catching spills, being softer and warmer for baby. We found the puppy pads not as absorbent, and sometimes liquid pooled on top and rolled off!

  We're using reusables too. If you work out a system, then can be a lot cheaper and kinder to baby's bum. I'd recommend getting a couple of reusables to keep in the car/nappy bag/at home. OSFM means baby won't really outgrow them and you will ALWAYS have a spare nappy around (if you've run out on the go or between shops). Definitely get a reusable swim nappy. Disposable swim nappies don't hold urine anyway.

  Also agree with getting a baby carrier (wrap or structured carrier). Baby wearing Aotearoa rents them out for the cost of shipping. Baby is often too small for a stroller when they're first born and carrying them in a pack will keep your hands free. Our son is 1 and we definitely use the carrier and wrap more than the stroller (the stroller is used mostly as a beach cart lol)

  We have also found wetbags to be infinitely useful. We've never bought the scented nappy bags for dirty nappies and put nappies in a wet bag on the go. When we started solids and were eating out, we could put baby's dirty bib, utensils, etc. in a wet bag and not worry about it spilling everywhere. Great for putting messy things in to keep everything else clean.

  Agree with comments about buying strollers second hand, and swivel car seats new on sale. You could also look at hiring car seats to try them out. Capsules are still fairly cheap to rent for 6 months (but you need to book them in advance).

• 

  Surreal on 04/05/2026 - 09:27

  Congratulations !

  Didn't try puppy pads as our change table was never that messy. But at times we had a series of cheap towels to cover it, which kept it feeling warm and stopped messes from spreading too far.

  Reusable nappies I think is a bit of a calling/mission rather than a cheapies tactic. You need to figure out your strategies for maintaining them and working out if you are getting more leaks than makes sense. So, points for = can keep for the next baby, less guilt about the nappy rubbish volume, less spend in the weekly shop, may be gentler on the baby, feels like a virtue, etc…. points against = your 'system' gets far more complex and labour intensive (I think the process of disassembling/scraping, washing, hanging, un-hanging, assembling could be 30 mins of labour time for a bucket of 15 nappies), also against is the leak potential much higher.

  Disposable nappies at night can be a key option that gets you fewer sleep interruptions, but that will change month to month. I think a smart cheapie should explore the different cheaper brands as there may be some that do fit and work for you, but we always ended up back at huggies to get that leak potential to almost zero.

• 

  Wakrak on 04/05/2026 - 09:28

  Handy thread from a few years back
  https://www.cheapies.nz/node/41810

• 

  dealhunter on 04/05/2026 - 16:02

  Blue pads in the capsule to catch spills. A new nappy under the nappy you're changing is usually enough to catch the unexpected leak is usually enough once you get the hang of it.

  To justify new purchases - good stuff (stokke, nuna etc.) has good resale value. But usually well looked after secondhand stuff is the better option (money and environment wise).

  You can buy a lot of things, but you can't buy sleep.

  Disposable nappies for convenience… Maybe unpopular opinion but the tommee tippee nappy bin is the best for containing smells but uses so much plastic. Don't buy the refills, as long as you have the empty cartons, you can buy 100-400 metre rolls of the plastic to refill yourself.

• 

  Everettpsycho on 04/05/2026 - 20:59

  We ended up with just a lot of cheap Kmart towels.eldest is now 5 and we still use them all the time.

  As a baby they were good change mat covers
  Soak up any spills
  Use them under the high chair to catch food
  Now they use big chairs we put them on the chair to stop them ruining the chair
  Put them on the sofa so they don't sit on there with their bare bums
  Also good for soaking up bath water when they go crazy in there

  They have just been universally useful, cost us nothing to buy and we just wash and they go again.

• 

  Everettpsycho on 05/05/2026 - 19:35

  One pointer I gave to someone having kids that I think is important but also a good cheapie money saving tip.

  Having your kid isn't a deadline or the end, it's just the end of pregnancy and the start of your life with your child. There's a lot of pressure to be ready and buy everything before they arrive, but the world doesn't stop and you can still go to the shops, I was in postie the day my first was born buying more blankets and clothes.

  No one knows what their kid will be like until they are here, you might need bigger or smaller clothes, more blankets, or different nappies because the shape of one type doesn't hold in the explosive poonami, might get a wriggler and just abandon high change tables because they are just dangerous if your kids fight it. Things like cots won't be needed for 6 months so keep an eye out for farmers sales or better still marketplace steal and then farmers sale for a mattress, you have time on your side.

  We got a rented capsule and bought a pram for our eldest, then found out for our second for a little more we could rent the capsule that works with the pram, saved a load of cash over buying the capsule and got one that worked well for us.

  Bottom line though is try it, buy something cheap and as long as it's safe it's fine. If it works for you great buy more, if it doesn't you wasted very little time or money. We found we didn't need loads of the junk people sell, we survived fine with no nappy bin, bottle warmer and change mat covers. Used Google homes as white noise machines after trying a phone app instead of buying the shoosher things. We just didn't think spending made those bits of our lives any easier than just emptying the Bing more regularly or using towels on the change mat.

  • 

    Natashatanya on 06/05/2026 - 08:25

    Great thoughts! I agree, you definitely shouldn't have a "list you tick off". Get what you need, when you need it.
    Do what will save your sanity, don't feel guilty for your choices.

• 

  magicmarker on 05/05/2026 - 21:33

  We used reusables after the first few weeks with our kids and the next one is used the same set of reusables. They do leak a bit at times when they are younger although this was quite minimal. We just use 1 disposable over night as they absorb so much more. It does save us about 4-5 nappies during the day and I would normally do the reusables every 2nd day. Now with a few kids, laundry is done everyday anyway. It does work out to be a fair bit cheaper if you don't mind doing laundry. Preschool was also happy to change the reusables and put it into our wet bag to be cleaned.

  It does suck in winter as they can take longer to dry. We just whack them in front of the fireplace or finish off the drying in a dryer. if you use a dryer to dry the nappies straight out of the wash, it may not be that much cheaper with the current electricity prices!

  Good luck with the new baby. Exciting times!