sunwas

Hi

I'm hoping to come to NZ with my husband and baby girl who'll be 9 months old when we arrive in June 08. What should I buy here and ship over and what should I simply buy in NZ?

For example, I heard you can't get 'GroBags' over there, I heard there isn't much choice for nice baby clothes and its best to stock up on Gap, H&M, Tesco, ASDA etc. stuff for price, choice, style and quality. What about equipment such as high chairs, cot, books, toys etc?? I know all of that stuff will be available over in NZ but should we buy it here for the quality and choice and then ship it over? I've heard books are expensive.

I know this sounds silly - but she loves In The Night Garden and Boogie Beebies, is it worth recording/buying DVDs and taking over or should I just rely on NZ kids tv?

Nappies - what is a good brand in NZ? At the mo, we love Tesco nappies over and above all the other brands.

Milk - currently she is breastfed and has a bit of Aptamil Extra Hungry - what brands of formula are available over there? Any casein based ones??

Any hints/tips/advice for the LONG journey and the weeks prior to our shipment arriving (on the optimistic assumption that hubbie gets job and visa!)....

Thanks

(New Mummy) Sunita

littleal

Nappies - I found we could buy Huggies but not Pampers. Pams own brand were not as reliable as UK nappies and for some reason, all nappies seemed more likely to leak on a long flight. Books are expensive but NZ is the home of the wonderful Hairy McLairy from Donaldson's Dairy . I don't know about the rest of your questions as were travelling with a 3 year old.

I'm interested myself as we will need a new toddler car/booster seat when we arrive soon. Do they sell them in the Warehouse?

Alison

SarahB

Hello new mummy! We moved here with a 19 month old who's now 4! I wasn't going to have any more after being butchered up in the UK but I braved it and now have a beautiful 1 year old girl!

I'll try to answer some of your questions.

Whatever you have bought, then bring it over. You can buy most things you need here but the choice will be very limited compared to UK. We travelled DS in his car seat, it fitted onto the plane seat OK and he was familiar with it so slept most of the way. You can get Britax stuff here but its called Safe n Sound.

You can get gro-bags here but probably not called that. Last winter my daughter had a gro-bag type thing bought from Farmers but it was so warm, and not cold enough here in Auckland, to use it very often. You can get near enough everything you need but you need to ask questions about where to shop and go and see for yourself....trial and error. I couldn't find any scratch mitts here last year so I got my mum to send some over for me.

Yes, I did go to the Next sales and stocked up on 18 months worth of clothes for DS. Both mine and OH's family know I love Next and often go to the sales for me and send the stuff over. I also have bought myself clothes online from Dorothy Perkins, get it delivered to my mum and she sends it over for me. Keep a UK bank account open and you can pay the postage back to them easily enough. Next have online sales so you could do the same with them if you wanted. If you trawl through Trademe you can get some bargains, near enough anything you want. My daughter still has a wardrobe of Next clothes now and most of it was bought secondhand from Trademe. I'm a bit of a Trademe addict now and sell all the outgrown kids clothes on there too.

In the Night Garden is on TV2 in the mornings at the moment, you can buy the soft toys and books in the shops no problem. Before we moved over here we taped hours and hours of CBeebies for DS and he still watches them occasionally even now, its a great idea. My son watches PlayHouse Disney on Sky but its very repetitive.

Nappies..... Huggies or Treasures/Giggles here.... also cheaper home brands are available which my friend uses and says they are fine. Nappies seemed a right rip off to me to start with but I expect it was coz it was in dollars and seemed to be a lot of them!

I was pleasantly surprised on the range of Formula here. I use Heinz Nurture and its not too expensive. If you can shop at PacnSave its a whole 8 dollars less per tin than other shops to buy some brands. Some of the UK brands are here, but under different names.... I think Cow and Gate is Karicare or something, sorry you need to check what they are....cant remember now off the top of my head. Baby food is extremely limited compared to UK... get used to making your own!

Sorry have run out of time now, gotta feed hungry little girl.....good luck anyway and hope some of my info helps! Sarah x