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Today’s Hint: A Tip for Cutting the Cost of Baby Gear

September 22, 2014 By Hint Mama

Babies do really grow fast. Just like everyone tells you, in a blink of an eye, your new bundle of joy will be sitting up and crawling, and then walking and talking.

This means your little one is likely to quickly go through lots of baby gear, especially if the products you carefully selected are only designed for a very limited time span of your child’s life, straining your budget in the process. In fact, according to the book Baby Bargains, my go-to baby product review resource, parents will spend $7,385 on average on first-year baby gear.

The good news, however, is that there are many ways to bring down this figure, including a tip I share in a post over at U.S. News Money’s The Frugal Shopper blog. The trick, which is today’s hint, is to go for baby gear items that can grow with your child, transforming from products appropriate for babies to those appropriate for toddlers and even older kids.

Magical_Night_Mobile_w_babyIt’s now increasingly possible to find this sort of multi-stage, multi-function gear, as more and more baby gear manufacturers roll out convertible products (and as I mentioned in a previous hint, multi-stage gear was one of the major trends at the recent big baby gear industry ABC Kids Expo trade show in Las Vegas).

The convertible gear is popping up in most major baby gear categories, from car seats and cribs to mealtime seating and mobiles (see Tiny Love’s mobile that transforms into a lamp, for instance, in the images above and to the left).

The trend is also cropping up in some seemingly unlikely spots, like toilet training and nursing product categories. For example, a number of companies are coming out with nursing cover designs that work as much more than breastfeeding accessories. Itzy Ritzy, for instance, sells $25 nursing covers that double as infinity scarves, while the PunkinWrap nursing cover ($48 with some accessories) is designed to also work as a blanket, portable changing pad and toddler yoga mat, among other functions.

You can read about a number of convertible product options (including ones I haven’t yet covered here at Hint Mama), as well get my take on when to consider such products, in my full post, “How to Save on Baby Products,” at The Frugal Shopper blog.

Would you buy convertible baby gear – why or why not? What’s your favorite multi-stage baby product?

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  • Today’s Hint: 3 Baby Gear Trends You Want to Know AboutToday’s Hint: 3 Baby Gear Trends You Want to Know About
  • Today’s Hint: 5 Baby Gear Sites That Can Help Parents Save MoneyToday’s Hint: 5 Baby Gear Sites That Can Help Parents Save Money
  • Today’s Hint: Help With the New vs. Used Baby Gear DecisionToday’s Hint: Help With the New vs. Used Baby Gear Decision
  • Today’s Hint: Dress Your Baby & Toddler in Too-Big ClothesToday’s Hint: Dress Your Baby & Toddler in Too-Big Clothes
  • Today’s Hint: What to Buy at the Dollar StoreToday’s Hint: What to Buy at the Dollar Store

Filed Under: Baby Registry, Car Seats, Gear, Preparing for Baby, Savings Tagged With: ABC Kids Expo, baby bargains, car seats, cribs, Hint Mama, how to save on baby gear, how to save on baby products, Itzy Ritzy, mealtime seating, mobiles, nursing covers, PunkinWrap, The Frugal Shopper, Tiny Love, U.S. News Money

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  1. Today’s Hint: 3 Ways to Cut the Cost of Potty Training – Hint Mama says:
    November 6, 2014 at 3:59 am

    […] have gone for a convertible potty like the ones Hint Mama has mentioned in recent hints on new baby gear trends showcased at the big ABC Kids Expo trade show. Such potties transform into removable potty seats for toilets and then into step stools, so […]

  2. Today’s Hint: Hint Mama’s Baby Gear Buying Guide – Hint Mama says:
    March 2, 2015 at 3:39 pm

    […] convertible strollers, cribs that transform into useful furniture, living-room worthy gliders and mobiles that turn into lamps. While many of these multi-stage items cost more than their non-convertible counterparts, their […]

  3. Today’s Hint: Hint Mama’s Top Ten Nursing Hints & GIVEAWAY – Hint Mama says:
    April 17, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    […] Go for a nursing cover that works for much more than breastfeeding. […]

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Before entering the corporate world, Jennifer Saranow Schultz (aka Hint Mama) was the lead writer for The New York Times “Bucks” personal finance blog and a reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Read More…

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