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Welcome to Australian Baby Bargains, saving you money!
Welcome to Australian Baby Bargains, the only destination you’ll need to sell the gear your little ones have outgrown and grab yourself great deals on pre-loved baby and children’s items.
From our humble beginnings on Facebook, we’ve grown into a thriving online marketplace. We bring Australian parents a high-quality, completely free and (most importantly) local service for buying and selling new and pre-loved baby and children’s items.
It’s virtually effortless to buy and sell your baby and child items here.
Best of all, it’s local—and 100% FREE!
Don’t forget to check out our hugely popular marketplace, our online directory showcasing a selection of amazing businesses we love so much, and the centerpiece of our website, the baby classifieds.
I won’t insult any of us mums by saying that creating a business is like giving birth. If it was, they’d give out epidurals for entrepreneurs. However, there’s always a good story behind every great venture—and here’s mine.
With my own stockpile of baby items to sell, I quickly grew frustrated with listings on online auction sites—paying the fees, waiting for bidders, and failing to sell a lot of the time. I decided there had to be a better, cheaper way to buy and sell these goods. We all know kids grow faster than they can wear out their clothes and toys so I needed to create a solution.
I setup an album on Facebook to promote to my friends and quickly became impatient! My idea then blossomed into the concept of a “fan page” to share with other mums in Australia—and that’s when Adelaide Baby Bargains (ABB) was born.
Word spread fast, and ABB became the buzz around town. With our membership steadily growing and our Facebook page overloaded with listings, we developed a dedicated website to better serve mums. The site was a huge success, and I knew it was time to share Baby Bargains with the rest of Australia.
It’s been a lot of work, but so worth it! We’re finally here and I’m thrilled to introduce you Australian Baby Bargains. Shop locally, or shop across cities! We’ve got thousands of listings of all things babies and kids, and best of all – IT’S FEE FREE!
So, what are you waiting for? Join Australian Baby Bargains today (it won’t cost you a cent) and discover the revolutionary shopping experience that’s taken Adelaide by storm. Like thousands of others, you’ll soon wonder what you ever did without it.
Regards
Belinda Jennings
Founder & CEO
Saving Money, One Nappy Change at a Time!
Almost one in two working families in Australia live dangerously close to the financial brink and up to 90% feel uncomfortable with their financial position, according to a recent survey by RaboDirect.
Sobering thoughts when you add in the cost of raising a baby to its first birthday. International baby resource, Babycentre, has calculated that bringing up baby for the first 12 months can cost parents up to $16,000!
One of the biggest expenses parents face with their new baby is nappies, with a cost of up to $6000 per child in disposable nappies!
Most new parents don’t give much thought to the cost of nappies before their baby arrives, but once they take their precious little bundle home from the hospital, the weekly expenditure on nappies really starts to bite, especially when the parents may have just dropped from two salaries to one.
Founder of Cushie Tushies and Telstra Business Awards finalist, Catherine Langman, says that more and more parents are turning to modern cloth nappies as a way to save money. Not only can they save you $3000 to $5000, but will also save up to one tonne of rubbish being generated. And that’s per child compared to disposables!
Financial Counselling Australia suggests people should try to treat savings as if it were a regular bill.
Parents-to-be can take this advice one step further and layby their modern cloth nappies whilst still pregnant – that way, once baby arrives and your household income drops, you already have all your nappies for birth to toilet training and your household budget won’t be under as much pressure.
With over 300,000 babies born in Australia every year, there’s a lot of families who could benefit, potentially saving a combined $900million!
For further information about modern cloth nappies or details of the potential savings parents can make using them, please contact Catherine Langman at cath@cushietushies.com.au or visit their website www.cushietushies.com.au
10 Top Tips to Losing Your Baby Weight
Life changes dramatically after we have babies and once you have adjusted to motherhood and managed to get your little one into a routine, many mums focus turns to their post baby body and what the best way is for them to lose some weight.
Firstly, the most important point to note is that no one should ever feel pressure to lose weight and although some mums feel ready to start losing weight a few months after the birth, many are not ready for a year or more after the birth. There is no one size fits all and you should only think about any weight loss when you feel 100% ready to do so – physically and mentally.
If you do decide that you want to lose some weight then it is crucial to do it in a healthy way. This means no crash diets, no drastic weigh loss, no weight loss pills and instead by following a healthy and safe weight loss plan. If you are breastfeeding it is also important to choose a diet plan that offers you a wide range of nutrients and does not cut out food groups of severely restricts calorie intake. Breastfeeding and weight loss is possible – providing you do it in a safe way and aim for approximately 500g – 1kg a week.
So what are our top tips for post pregnancy weight loss?
1) Find a diet plan that suits your lifestyle and be realistic with what you want to achieve and a timeframe which to achieve it
2) If you can breastfeed, this is a great way to give your baby great nutrients and to help you burn fat. Breastfeeding also burns approximately 500 calories a day
3) Swap all white breads, pasta and rice for wholegrain varieties
4) Throw out junk food so you are not tempted to eat it
5) Make sure you are eating good quality and lean protein each time you eat – think lean meats, dairy, nuts, fish, beans and tofu
6) Start to fit in incidental exercise into your day – such as doing some squats when you make a cup of tea
7) Make sure you are drinking enough water to keep your body hydrated and your digestion in good working order
8) Don’t skip meals and try to eat 5-6 times a day
9) Plan ahead so you have healthy foods to hand at all time
10) Increase your fibre which aids digestion and helps you feel fuller for longer
This article was written by Rhian Allen, Founder of Lose Baby Weight.
For more motivation, advice, recipes and safe post baby diet and exercise plans visit www.losebabyweight.com.au and for daily motivation join the Lose Baby Weight Facebook page at www.facebook.com/losebabyweight.com.au
Local Adelaide Success Story Bags a Win at AusMumpreneur Awards
The Bamboo Bubby Bag™ has been named Favourite Product in this year’s Connect2Mums national AusMumpreneur Awards, recognising the best and brightest entrepreneurs in the mumpreneur industry, acknowledging success in business, product development, services and innovation.
Kelly Northey from Bamboo Bubby is proud for her product to be recognised as the Favourite Product for 2012 and was thrilled to accept her award.
Kelly is so pleased that the Bamboo Bubby Bag™, born during a distressing and sleep deprived time has grown quickly in popularity, allowing Bamboo Bubby as a business to thrive. Being recognised with this national award, will enable her to spread word of its benefits further than ever and continue on helping many others with a solution and support through an exhausting, upsetting and quite isolating time.
She loves that the business she’s building gives back to others in the form of both helpful products and support through Bamboo Bubby’s ever growing Facebook and Twitter groups.
Further information about Bamboo Bubby is available at <a href=” www.bamboobubby.com.au” title=”Bamboo Bubby Website” target=”_blank”>www.bamboobubby.com.au</a> where they can be purchased along with a growing range of quality natural and organic skincare, bathtime
and also now daytime products all designed especially for sensitive, eczema babies and toddlers.
ecostore cleans up at Green Lifestyle Awards!
Congratulations to our gorgeous friends at ecostore Australia for their latest win at the Green Lifestyle Awards (formerly G Magazine) in the Home category. Travis Kalleske, Sales and Marketing Manager for Australia and the esteemed panel of judges from the inaugural Green Lifestyle Awards are pictured below, from L-R Emma Bowen, John Dee, Travis and Tanya Ha. Matt Perry from Republic of Everyone, a cutting edge and very innovative creative agency was among the board of judges for the inaugural lifestyle awards.
Guest speaker and hall of fame inductee Bob Brown acknowledged the Awards and their impact, saying “I congratulate all of you that are involved in your various ways in raising the green bar, in raising real-world sustainability, it has to be genuine to an authenticity which we can feel strongly about. We have a long way to go, and I think tonight is a sterling example of a community on the move and I hope events like this will become the predominant thinking in our society in decades ahead.”
Another great reason why I just love ecostore and use them around our house. Well deserved!!
How I Coped with 2 Babies Under 1
It’s February 2011. The weather is hot, humid and positively awful! We are in Noosa with our four month old, baby boy Aston. I’m still breastfeeding so I couldn’t take my travel sickness tablets and worst of all, I couldn’t sip on a couple of Cosmopolitans in Hastings Street!
I remember the moment just like it was yesterday. We were at lunch with family when I just couldn’t cope with the heat any longer. I may have been dehydrated with the heat and breastfeeding, but whatever it was, I wasn’t feeling very well. My husband’s aunty suggested I might be pregnant!? My husband and I looked at each other as if she was mad. A four month old baby, breast feeding AND on the mini pill? The woman was out of her mind. With a nagging feeling that we should probably get a pregnancy test from the chemist to prove her wrong, we left lunch early and headed back to our hotel room with a ‘packet of 3’.
The five minutes wait to see if I was the proud owner of a ‘two lined stick’ was the longest five minutes of my entire life. If this was happening, how was I going to cope with an eleven month old baby and a newborn? Surely these things can’t happen? Five minutes passed. One very distinct pink line and one VERY faint pink line. Obviously a dud test. Test No.2. One very distinct pink line and one very faint one. My hands trembled as I attempted test No.3. There was no mistaking it, there was definitely two lines. Wow. The realisation that I was going to be a Mother to two babies under the age of one.
We arrived back in Adelaide a few days later and the first thing I did was book in with my obstetrician. You can imagine the reaction from the nurses in his office that I had befriended and grown to love during my first pregnancy. I was told that I was eleven weeks and six days along. The first three months of my pregnancy were over and I had only just found out! That means I had no morning sickness and being back at pre-baby weight already, I had no weight gain (due to breastfeeding I’m guessing). These are stories you only read in magazines surely!
My second pregnancy was long and hard, caring for and carrying a very heavy and active Aston for the most of it. There were some days were I cried at the thought of how I was going to cope with two babies, a husband that was Chairman of a company, two stepsons that we have a little over half the time and not a lot of family support. I wasn’t even sure I was maternal when I met my husband at thirty years of age, enjoying a fabulous career and hadn’t really thought about being a Mum….
Amongst all of the tears, the worry and the overwhelming feelings of fear, we were going to have another beautiful life to add to our family of three amazing sons. As time went on, the idea became easier to cope with and the excitement built of having two children so close together that they would ultimately not know life without each other. Affectionately known as our Irish Twins ☺
Our second (technically fourth) baby boy Damon was born in September of 2011. A doll. Blonde with green eyes and the face of angel. A total contrast to his dark eyed, dark haired ‘big’ baby brother and his copper haired and strawberry blonde older brothers. A seven minute birth with no complications and, (after a very traumatic birth with Aston), an experience of true Mother and Baby bonding that I will never forget.
I worked hard to get Aston into a very strict routine and had him sleeping through the night from six months of age and we have rarely had sleep troubles with him since. Damon was sleeping through from five months. People ask why I am so strict on routine and why I chose to ‘have no life’ through this last year with two babies. The truth is, it was and is my only coping mechanism. If I didn’t get sleep and downtime, I couldn’t function the next day and I needed the energy.
There were days when I didn’t think I could cope. There were days where I wanted to ‘pack it all in’ and run away. There were days I thought I could have borderline post-natal depression as I was so overwhelmed, but, it was all due to lack of sleep and exhaustion. A form of torture in some countries!
Damon turned one last Friday. Aston is yet to turn two. It has been such a wonderful experience raising two little boys so close together but I have to mention that the support from my Husband has been amazing. We have had so many laughs, so much fun, our fair share of ups and downs, frustrations and lots of craziness, but the one thing we do have in our house is love…..and a lot of it.
Here’s to life as a Mother. There is no better job in the world.
Tania Lewis is the mum of 4 children and wife to Mark.
Her blog ‘Bambini Di Casa’ can be found here: www.bambinidicasa.com.au
Post Natal Depression – What it is and how to treat it
What is Post Natal Depression?
New mothers and fathers naturally expect the time around childbirth to be a very happy time. They see pictures of happy parents in the media, and before the birth there isn’t a lot of sharing about the potential challenges at this time. I have seen many new mums in my practice saying that they feel guilty for not bonding immediately with their child, or for not feeling happy, when they perceive they should. However, the time after the birth is a time when both women and men are more at risk of experiencing distress, and potentially developing a problem such as post-natal depression (PND) or anxiety.
You have probably heard of or experienced the “baby blues”, which women commonly experience a few days after the birth, often related to tiredness and hormonal change. The blues may trigger tearfulness and irritability, and they settle within a couple of weeks. However, significant anxiety and depression can also develop after birth. PND occurs in up to 10–20% of all women during the first year after childbirth, and about 10% of men also experience PND. PND describes the more severe or prolonged symptoms of depression that last more than a couple of weeks and interfere with the ability to do daily tasks, or to relate to the baby or others.
Why does it develop?
PND develops because of biological and psychological factors. It is important to rule out medical causes of symptoms similar to PND, such as anemia. Biological factors might also include a genetic vulnerability to depression, previous episodes of depression, and hormone fluctuations during and after pregnancy. Childbirth and becoming a parent involves change and stress. Sometimes there can be other stresses such as financial stress, relationship stress or even grief around the same time. There may be lack of support. Fatigue is an important factor, and being sleep-deprived makes us more vulnerable to depression, as do difficulties with breastfeeding or having an unwell baby.
What are the symptoms or signs of PND?
Watch out for symptoms occurring most of the time and nearly every day for at least two weeks: sadness, depressed mood, tearfulness or irritability; loss of interest in daily activities, or enjoyment in activities usually enjoyed; loss of confidence; feelings of guilt or worthlessness; fatigue, reduced energy (beyond what typically occurs when caring for a baby); broken sleep (irrespective of the baby); change in appetite, weight loss; inability to concentrate; a sense of hopelessness; thoughts of not wanting to be alive or suicide (seek help immediately). Also notice symptoms of anxiety, such as worrying excessively about the baby, your health or feeling panicky.
How can we get some help?
If you are concerned then see your GP or health professional. They can assess whether depression or anxiety are present and offer support and advice. There are a range of treatment options, depending on the severity of the depression or anxiety, and the person’s preferences. They include:
- Support and counselling.
- Lifestyle changes, such as getting more sleep, doing relaxing activities, eating well, getting out for walks.
- Cognitive-behavioural therapy or CBT (learning to be aware of thoughts and underlying beliefs that might trigger low mood, such as high expectations of yourself, wanting to be 100% perfect or in control – not possible with a baby).
- Inter-personal therapy (IPT) and couple therapy, focussing on resolving issues such as conflict which might be contributing. Attachment-based therapy can assist with relating to the baby.
- Practising mindfulness or being in the moment, which is relaxing and can help you enjoy your baby. There are now mindfulness-based therapies which can assist.
- Complementary therapies.
- Medication, such as antidepressants.
Dr Cate’s tips in relation to PND
1. Rest or sleep when you can (e.g. when your baby naps), eat well, go for walks.
2. Use relaxation techniques, meditation, mindfulness or self-hypnosis.
3. Remember that it takes time to bond with the baby, to breast-feed, to learn the role of being a mum or dad, and so lessen the expectations on yourself. Also let go of any tasks that you can, quit self-criticism, and let go of the need to be in control all of the time! Above all, be kind to yourself.
4. Seek out support from others (partners, family, friends, other mums or dads).
5. Seek out professional assistance if you are concerned. Therapy or medication may be helpful or needed.
Overall, remember that we need to be a good-enough parent and not a perfect parent. Seek out other mums or dads through community groups or websites such as this! Also have a good relationship with your GP and see a counsellor early on if you need support.
Visit www.drcatehowell.com.au for more information and feel free to contact us if you would like to.
The websites below may also be helpful.
www.beyondblue.org.au
www.blackdoginstitute.org.au
www.panda.org
www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au
Click here to read what Cate has to say about Anxiety and Panic.
Dr Cate Howell OAM CSM is a medical practitioner, therapist, educator and author. She has clinics at Gilberton, Belair and Goolwa, focussing on counselling, mental health and wellbeing. Cate has written two books to date; “Keeping the blues away” about depression, and “Release Your Worries” on stress and anxiety. Further information about Cate and the practices, a blog and helpful information are available on her website www.drcatehowell.com.au
