Catherine is the cheapest member of our family, unless you count David (right now his only costs are what it takes to feed me, and my pills). We’ve bought very few clothes for her since people give us so many clothes – friends, family, strangers. Her disposable diapers are very expensive but lately family has bought some for us because they see that she’s almost potty-trained (except for the toilet part! ha) and I’ve made them stretch by putting her two washable all in one training pants on her every day that we’re home long enough. She eats whatever I eat; we’ve bought very few things just for her to eat – cereal before we stopped buying most grains, Hansen’s junior juice when we could find more than apple, and now baby yogurt and granola bars. She also finishes Papa’s supper quite often. She doesn’t need her own bed, but we have two queen size beds so she sort of sleeps on one…her stuffed animals do, anyway, while she sleeps on the crack right next to me. That’s clothes, food, diapers, and bed – what else is expensive about babies? She is so healthy that she really doesn’t need to see a doctor regularly, so we haven’t taken her to one. Thank God that her health has persisted even after my breastmilk dried up in late July. People have given us most of our children’s books and we bought her a few board books and other books when we could.
So as long as you have people willing to share clothes, help with food once in a while (or at least give you ways of buying very healthy food inexpensively), and work out diaper solutions, children can only add to the family in many ways! Deo Gratias for our little ones. Please Lord, bless us with many more!