I can't help with this as I don't have kids but I will say congratulations and good luck!

Hobchild:

 

Hello fellow geekzoners I'm about to have my very first baby in a little under two months and although we think we have most things sorted

 

We have 4 kids and reading this made me smile.  At your point in life we thought we had everything sorted too

My partner preferred the yellow pumps.  I can't remember the make sorry and I'm not searching that at work.

I shopped around for baby monitors when my first arrived a couple of years ago - dam those things are expensive.

Instead I spent $6 on this iOS App: https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/cloud-baby-monitor/id432791399?mt=8. Because we're setup with Family Sharing, for $6 we installed it on all our iOS devices and it's awesome.  

Admittedly, we don't use a monitor often as they usually sleep within earshot. These days we only really use it when they fall asleep in the car - an iPhone wedges between the headrests nicely.

The yellow pumps are Madela. They are pretty good and we actually rented ours for couple of months from birthcare. The Philips Avent which is quite popular didnt really work out for us. Actually i have one sitting almost brand new somewhere which we turned on once and found the suction wasn't strong enough

As for baby monitors, we used the Oricom ones and found the video feed to be invaluable. My brother in law got the Dlink and he is happy with that as well but we both also have a set of Motorola MBP8 monitors which is handy when traveling

Scott3:

 

Advise is to sleep newborns in the same room as parent(s), so no need for one at night time, During the day I pick up the Moses basket (get one of these or a bassinet, complete with sleeping baby, and transfer it to the lounge, where we spend most of the day. 

Note babies do not care about light or noise (conversational levels). The womb is a very noisy place, and our baby loves white noise generators, hairdryers, lawnmowers, blenders etc. It is ideal if you keep them used to a noisy environment.

 

I guess if you were alone, a baby monitor would allow you to do things like washing the car, gardening etc.

Other things of note:

 

• You will get lots of gifts of baby clothes, and they grow fast, don't buy many yourself.
• Don't bother with a special nappy bin yet. The consumables for these are expensive, its capacity is small, and it is a bit fiddly to use. (I brought a sangenic bin, and 13x consumables when they were on sale a farmers, used up first consumable in like 2 weeks). Newborn poos (except for the first 3 days where you will be in hospital anyway) don't smell. Currently using a 20L bucket, and a supermarket bin liner, and saving the sangenic consumables for when baby starts on solids.
• Check your baby capsule fits in your car. In our car (12 year old corolla), it required the passengers seat to be so far forward my knees touch the dashboard. - have mounted it in the middle center seat, and it pokes between the seats, but I don't think all cars allow for this mounting option.
• If the birth is done at Auckland hospital, you will be transferred to birthcare for a three night stay, immediately after a natural birth, or after two days in hospital for a cesarean. Auckland hospital let me sleep on a matrices on the floor (private room, free or charge), and things went generally well. Due to a rush of pre Christmas births, and my wife no longer requiring epidural pain-killers, Auckland hospital discharged us to birth-care after one night. At birthcare, if you are transferred from hospital, the standard room is a shared room, where partners are not permitted to stay overnight. Cost to upgrade to a room where partners can stay is $380 per night. I figured (especially as I live 5mins drive away) that we could spend the $1200 better elsewhere. In hindsight I recommend just paying this. Essentially while the staff at birth-care were generally great, they were under-resourced to be able to handle new mothers recovering from surgery, without any other support. Not worth the drama, ended up getting wife and baby discharged two nights early to avoid further drama.

This is gold right here!

I totally agree with the notes about noise and light. I honestly think we fluked this with our daughter. While everyone was getting white noise machines and black out curtains our daughter would just sleep anywhere, because she always had.

Every baby is different so results may vary but I highly recommend this advice!

Yep...every baby is different. We have had three babies around similar age in the family and the experience was completely different for all.

I am all for getting new borns into their own room ASAP.

For such tiny creatures babies sure make a lot of noise.  Even when they are asleep they snuffle away quite loudly.

They need the room warmer than I ever found comfortable for sleeping.

They typically need changing as often as feeding, so you are carting them around the house one way or another - unless you are changing nappies in the master bedroom!

A good change table at an ergonomic height is a great investment.  I built my own complete with shelves for storage, and a baby bath built into the lid, that I could drain into a bucket.  Great to ahve evryting in one place for doing changes bathing etc.

We were renovating the house when my oldest son was a newborn (hammers, circ. saws the whole deal).  He can sleep through anything.

BTW I love the use of the word 'we' in reference to pumps.  Did any of the guys saying 'we' actually try one?

Our boy slept much better in his own room. I think we were keeping him awake. In his own room from three months he slept through the night, which we discovered on holiday when there wasn't room for him our our room.

timmmay:

Kids are expensive, get used to it!

Have a look at Breastapo. New parents are constantly bombarded with "breast is best", to the point it's approaching brainwashing. NZ midwives and hospital staff aren't even allowed to discuss other options, to the detriment of the child. Agree there are advantages to breast feeding, but if a woman can't breast feed it just serves to make her feel like a failure. No evidence that "breast is best" is ever offered either - not that I particularly doubt it, I just wonder how much better it is.

Though I don't really want to get into a debate here.

Keep baby monitors as basic and easiest possible (well almost). 

Id stay away from App based....otherwise you will find you will want to always have your phone constantly on and streaming.... what happens if you are on the phone or need to travel away from home and need somthing to use when staying elsewhere?

So with monitors, the standard gig here is to use the parent unit (batteries and plug into mains) with monitor unit (always plug in). 

You might find you wanna mount it on the wall or even on the cot (of course taking adequate care of the wires) as baby grows you can move it to somewhere else. 

Wow I'm so overwhelmed by all the great advice we're getting, thank you.

I've told the wife about the Unimom forte breast pump and she seems impressed with the great reviews it's receiving.

Personally I think I'm more inclined to get just an audio baby monitor with a thermometer than a video at least for now as I think the video would distract me and I'd find myself watching all the time, I can always set up a video feed with an old phone if I feel the need.

Not too worried about the nappy bins as the baby's room is right next an outside door so will be easy enough to just keep a bin directly outside, the change table is setup right next to the door anyway.

Quite interesting about what goes on in different cities hospitals I will have to ask the midwife about Dunedin's process.

 What i found handy with Video is that sometimes they make a noise and you can just have a quick look at the monitor. As they grow older, they will not necessarily cry when they wake up. My son nowadays sits in his cot and sometimes tries to climb out of it. Wouldn't catch that if it was a audio only monitor.

After reading through reviews on thenightlight and thewirecutter and reddit, we recently purchased the following.

Spectra S1 breastpump. It's also battery operated which was a requirement.

https://www.amazon.com/Spectra-Baby-USA-Hospital-Rechargeable/dp/B00DBKFFJM/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1516052479&sr=1-1&keywords=spectra+s1

Infant Optics DXR-8 baby monitor. It does not run over WiFi and distance coverage around our house is great.

https://www.amazon.com/Infant-Optics-DXR-8-Monitor-Interchangeable/dp/B00ECHYTBI/ref=sr_1_3_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1516052531&sr=1-3&keywords=dxr-8

Uppbaby Cruz 2018 stroller.

https://www.amazon.com/UPPAbaby-2017-CRUZ-Stroller-Gregory/dp/B01MT11067/ref=sr_1_4_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1516052588&sr=1-4&keywords=uppababy%2Bcruz&th=1

Safety 1st rectal thermometer.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004V2I0FU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1

Chicco Next2m crib.

https://www.babycity.co.nz/nursery/cots-and-bassinets/bassinets/chicco-next2me-crib-dove-grey-802415

Reclining chair with Ottoman. Seriously this is the most confortable thing I have ever sat on. I am currently gaming on this on the Xbox in front of a TV until the baby arrives. This is the best thing ever.

https://www.babycity.co.nz/nursery/furniture/nursing-chairs/reclining-swivel-chair-with-ottoman-712327

I asked a cabinet joiner friend of mine to build us a custom made changing table and wardrobe for the coming baby. Bought the below change tablet mat and the design of change table is fairly similar to the one in photo but without a middle separator. He used 16mm HMR with 2mm PVC edge tape all around construction. It's great quality. Did not cost a lot. If you have the time and want something special ask a local cabinet maker.

https://www.mocka.co.nz/change-table-sponge-mat.html

Hobchild:

 

Hello fellow geekzoners I'm about to have my very first baby in a little under two months and although we think we have most things sorted I'd like advice on baby monitors and breast pumps. If you have any recommendations on brands, where to buy, what not to buy etc I would love to hear from you. Even better if you think you have a something you would be willing to sell I'd love to hear from you too.

 

Thanks in advance 

 

Congratulations!

Breast pumps were really good for us. It meant that mum could get an early sleep and skip a night time feed as I'm a night owl and could stay up and do the midnight feed with a bottle of warmed up breast milk. Advantages of this are many including: Dad gets some of the bonding that otherwise only mums get, baby gets the benefits of breast milk, and baby gets used to a bottle early and easily. The latter is important as at some point when you want to get off breast feeding it can be hell if the baby doesn't want to go near a bottle.

We were by no means breast feeding Nazis and for our more hungry ones we'd often chuck them 100ml of formula on top if they wanted it. 

Now I am going to go ahead and do something you'll get a lot of... offer unsolicited advice - sorry! But we are huge fans of feeding to schedule, not demand. A couple of weeks after birth move to a schedule and stick to it. I can't remember it as it's all a long time ago but I think we started of with 5 a day then gradually reduce that in steps to 3 a day. Or something like that. Babies kicked up and indignant stink about it initially but got used to it. Life got a lot easier once the routine was bedded in.