The conventional wisdom on the internet seems to be that those baby health and grooming kits are not really worth the cost. They usually only have a few items you’ll actually use and te quality of some of the items, especially in the low end cheaper kits, is suspect. Many of my friends told me they replaced everything in the kit in a matter of months. As for that nice organizer? The new stuff didn’t always fit! Still, I wanted to stay organized, so I decided to create my own health and grooming ‘kit’.

The basket comes from JoAnns. It was on sale, 50% off through this weekend, but I have a feeling it’s a pretty common sale. We picked up a comb and brush set, rectal thermometer to fill the basket along with, Vaseline, cotton balls and q-tips. The q-tips are being stored in a votive candle holder, which ended up being the perfect height for them and the cotton ball holder is actually a small sugar bowl. Vaseline, cotton balls and q-tips were all recommended at our newborn care class.

We’re still missing too things: something for Zippy’s nails and nose. I found out our hospital will give us the bulb syringe that they use to clear her nose and mouth when she’s born. If the bulb syringe doesn’t work for us, we’ll get a nasal aspirator. I also haven’t been able to find a set of baby nail clippers that I like yet. I didn’t intend for the hair brush and comb to match the thermometer, but now that I notice they match I kind of want a white and blue nail clipper! The bulb syringe the hospital uses is also a nice blue. Isn’t it nice when everything comes together?

Votive Candle Holder: $1.49
Basket: $3.99 (on sale from $7.99)
Sugar Holder: $2.97
Hair Brush and Comb Set: $4.19
Thermometer: $10.94

Total cost: $23.58

Not too shabby, given that most kits with the organizational bag start at $20 and go up from there, and we got the brands/items we were interested in.

I do wish the sugar holder was a thick acrylic plastic, rather than glass. (I’d prefer the votive candle holder to be plastic as well, but than it wouldn’t be a very good candle holder!) The baby room is carpeted, but I don’t want to run the risk of accidently dropping something and having it shatter. I’m clumsy and already dropped the sugar bowl lid once! The other potential problem that I see is the q-tips may collect lint since they’re not covered. If it becomes a problem I can switch the votive candle out for something else.

I didn’t include the cotton balls, Vaseline or q-tips in the total cost, since they’re not normally included in the health and grooming kits. We also had cotton balls and q-tips already, so the only thing that needed to be purchased was the Vaseline, and we bought a generic brand. If I include the Vaseline, our total costs come to $25.90. Still not too bad.

Posted in Family Life | Tags: Baby Gear, Organizational Goodness