With our pending move we have been sorting belongings into the keep, donate and discard piles. I loathe waste. I hate getting rid of something I may want to use again later. It’s part of the reason I hold on to so much clutter. Hey, sometimes it’s useful! Like the backrest pillow. I bought it for college, but never really used it. It followed me from apartment to apartment and finally our home where it came in handy for Halloween photos with our 3 month old.

We’re moving into an apartment and won’t have room for everything. While we intended to buy gear that would last for multiple kids, not everything has held up as well as we might have hopped. It will cost more to store some of these items than it will to repurchase them. So as much as I hate waste, I’m afraid it’ll a fact of life.

Here’s the gear that we were very happy with, but won’t be making the trip with us (and what we expect to repurchase for the next baby.)

Lamaze Space Symphony Gym

Nicki loved her gym, and continued to play with it beyond 7 months. It was definitely one of our best purchases. Alas, she expresses her love in the form of destruction. Since she loved her gym for so long, she got quite good at manipulating it. She loved to bend the bars over her head, and yank the off the toys. The sad little motor that sways the bars no longer has enough strength to do a full rotation.

Beating up her beloved gym. (7 months old.)

After much debate we decided to donate the gym. The mat is still in good shape and there are plenty of gyms where the bars don’t move, so a dead motor shouldn’t be a deal breaker. We’ll likely replace this one with another Lamaze Gym.

Blooming Baby Bath

I was so excited about the blooming bath, but it didn’t fit in any of our sinks. Instead we ended up using it as a soft spot to dry her off on the blooming bath. When she was big enough to sit in the tub on her own, I would also kneel on the blooming bath to spare my knees from the hard floor. After over a year of use the seam is starting to become undone.

There’s nothing cuter than wrinkly post bath baby toes. (And wow, my 14 month old still has tiny feet, that’s a recent photo!)

Since the seam is busted, I’m afraid it isn’t in good enough shape for donation.

Breast Pump

We were warned in our breast feeding class that most pumps are designed to last for one baby. The motors just aren’t strong enough to last much longer. I used my pump way more often than the typical case due to our breastfeeding troubles. In fact, there was a time I was pumping eight times a day. By six months the motor was struggling. By nine months I was getting so little with my pump it hardly seemed worth it.

I plan on keeping the accessories and getting another pump for the next child. Obviously the pump cannot be donated.

Bottle Warmer

After a year of use, the bottle warmer started to look gross. The reservoir was hard to clean, and over many, many, many uses stuff just built up. I was happy enough with the bottle warmer, but it was a last minute purchase (I expected to breastfeed more and not need it as often.) Next time I will probably do a little more research before picking one. Another non-donatable item.

Snap N’ Go Stroller

The Snap N’ Go lasted up right up until our Christmas vacation (5 and a half months). The morning of our trip out the handle release got stuck, and we couldn’t fold the stroller without a great deal of force to go through security. We managed to force it to open and close during our trip, but that was the end of it’s useful life. Conveniently, that was also around the time we switched over from an infant bucket seat to a convertible seat.

Posted in Shopping | Tags: Baby Gear, Moving