My mother-in-law really wanted to throw me a baby shower, so I consented, and everything I received was emminently useful, as all the attendees were experienced Moms! Out of everything we received, only two blankets and a couple of bottles of baby wash (we discovered he’s mildly allergic to Johnson products) have been regifted to others.

Request books instead of toys, especially for first children. You can buy tons of second-hand toys for practically nothing, but books are harder to clean and find in good condition.

We stored extra diapers and wipes under the crib hidden by the crib skirt. And I also kept a three large bags on the floor of Aubrey’s closet. Each was labeled “donate”, “save”, or “return to lender”. Then once the bag was full, the clothes went to their permanent resting place…

Finally be VERY selective about the things you keep for sentimental reasons. We will accumulate a TON over the years so I don’t save every card, stuffed animal…blah blah blah. Let it go.

You don’t need a crib on day 1 if you get a co-sleeper (they fold up.)

Babies start out light, so you might not need to wheel a new one around. Our youngest is 5mo. and hasn’t been in a stroller yet — just slings, a Baby Bjorn, and car seat.

$ for college will be much more usefull than another outfit. If I ever do give a new mom an outfit I try to make it a bigger size (nothing like have a million 3month pieces and zero in 6months…)

Baby sleep positioners? Rhinestone studded pacifiers? 500 blankets? It’s amazing.

Just hope that there’s a gift receipt in the bottom of that bag, I guess.

And really, registries DO NOT stop people from buying things you don’t need — and those people aren’t always good with getting gift receipts either. So don’t depend on that.

So instead of setting up a typical baby registry at BabiesRUs and accumulating unnecessary material clutter, we set up a gift registry at CBR to enable our friends and family help defray the expense of banking our baby’s cord blood. (We initially thought cord blood banking was out of our price range, but the contributions we received in our CBR gift registry as well as a $250 coupon from
http://cord-blood-banking-coupon.com made it possible.)

This is how we deflected some of the pre-baby clutter from entering our home to begin with. Best wishes doing the same, Zoe.

You will likely end up with some clothes that are not returned in as good as condition as they were given. My strategy is just to gift generously with new outfits for the donors older child or next baby.

Also, a registry is wonderful, especially if you load it up with practical things. (Don’t forget you can include clutter control items like baskets and photo albums!) Perhaps the best gift I got was one friend’s offer to set up my registry for me and put all of her must-have items on it, then hand over the password. If you’re not so lucky, along with the gear reviews Erin mentioned, Consumer Reports has a list of bare bones essentials, right down to the number of snap tees you need. Don’t be afraid to put big things on the registry and ask friends or family to work together. For one shower, several friends joined forces and bought us our stroller/carseat combo, which was one of our most expensive purchases and best-used items. Same could go for a crib or a beautiful rocker you really love.

Alternately, I’ve held or been to baby showers where everyone brings homemade frozen food instead of gifts, bought a savings bond for the baby, or where we supplied fabric paint and plain white onesies for everyone to decorate.

As for dealing with the clutter, plan for it now while your nesting instict is kicking in! I wallpapered the (blessedly large) closet in my son’s room, lined it with shelves and filled them with baskets to hold bathing items, diapers, blankets, and bottles. The upper shelves hold plastic bins with too-big or outgrown clothes. One wall of his room has two giant bookshelves, and smaller baskets went there to hold onesies, sleep shirts and bibs. Now those small catch-alls hold socks, underpants and small toys, and the big ones hold extra wipes or swimming gear. Instead of a changing table, we used an old dresser, which means two big drawers for clothes and a smaller one for medicine, diaper creams, thermometers. I bought a $20 diaper organizer that hangs off one end and we’re still using 2 years later. Even the crib has a storage drawer underneath to hold sheets and blankets.

Don’t forget to start a binder with slide-in plastic sheets to hold all the manuals for all the stuff you’ll end up with! I didn’t figure that one out until about 18 months in. A small box to hold extra parts like the pins to hold the tray on the stroller is also helpful, as is a box for all those cards and souvenirs you figure you’ll eventually put in the baby book; in the meantime, they’ll be safe and in one place.

Finally, let yourself have a little fun! Yes, you’ll get more blankets, washcloths and bibs than anyone can ever use. My son has dozens of blankets, for example. But now he’s two, and his favorite is one I registered for — despite feeling it was a little frivolous — just because it was so cute and soft. You’re only a first-time mom once, so enjoy it!

Which brings me to my quandry: for those who borrowed clothing (baby or maternal), toys, equipment, how did you ensure the things were returned to the rightful owner? Did you have a system for keeping track of who gave what? Did anything end up so well used or “loved” that the item wasn’t really in returnable condition? If so – how was that handled?

I’m already facing at least three loving sources of clothing, one of whom definitely wants another pregnancy, one of whom probably does, and one of whom might.

Also, I agree with a previous comment that you don’t know what your child will like until it gets here. You may turn up your nose at the wet wipe warmer until it’s 2am and January in a Chicago-area house with astronomical heating bills!

Donations to battered women’s/family abuse shelters are always appreciated.

And box up and store the toys in 1 month rotations. Keeps them fresh, and when the perfect toy disappears, you know which one is really valued. Then you can “find” it.

Toys ARE the main source of all clutter with kids. I allowed only one laundry basket of toys per child in the house per day. (5 people, 920 sq.ft house) Now that the kids are teens, LEGO reigns in the bedroom of my son (youngest) and the girls, high schoolers, both have too much homework to play much.

Bottom Line: You can control the clutter, I used a bag system on the floor of the closet. Once the bag was filled with outgrown/out of season clothes, I would pack it up in a bin and store it, knowing that the next child could make use of it. When I was PG with #3, and knew it was a boy, after 2 girls, I looked more to solid color T-shirts, pants and shorts, so that hand me downs would be okay for the little guy to wear when the time came.
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Also, I must agree with many earlier posts that said to some degree you just need to make peace with all this. Before my first, I too was very concerned with my home being overrun with baby stuff, but in the end that really was the least of my concerns. Children bring chaos into our lives on much more than a physical level, so you will have plenty of time to try and work out systems to “control” all this — just try not miss out on any of the joy in the meantime.

Good luck!