After an eventful week of welcoming our twin baby boys, countless well wishers & family & friends dropping by, and the reality of fatherhood is finally sinking in…With all the new experience, times have changed as far as shopping experience goes too. Its time to shop for the newcomers. And boy oh boy..what a shopping list we have for the babies…from feeding supplies, to clothes, to diapers, to furniture, to toys…the list goes on and on. Being a first time parent it all seems to just overwhelm oneself. One of the things that is different about shopping for babies is that every thing seems to have an expiry date including food. The clothes wont be good enough in few months, the babies would outgrow the furniture, the toys would have to change with age…

Well shopping options are far and many for babies in Kuwait. The trick is to shop around and before actually buying anything. Our experience so far has been tiring and exciting at the same time. I ahve met parents who swear by speciality shops like MotherCare, and I have met parents who swear by local co-ops. One thing that we have understood so far is that hen shopping for babies we have to juggle between heart and mind. Heart would say buy from the best, and mind would say buy smart. Well keeping all this in mind, we have been scouring aisles of MotherCare, Boots, local co-ops, CarreFour, Lulu Hypermarket, and Sultan center for last few days. So far MotherCare has been safely striked off our list because everything is overpriced for the similar items which is available in other shops. To give an example feeding bottle which cost KD 2 a pop are available for KD 1.4 in the attached Boots store in Salmiya.

CarreFour and local co-ops are great places to get hold of pampers because you get good deals on bulk buy and chances are free samples will come your way too when competing brands will see you buying from others. Nutrition products like SIMILAC are better bought off in local co-ops as they are much cheaper than you local pharmacy [KD 2.6 in local co-op vs. KD 3 in local pharmacy].

Clothes is another area where its smart to buy smart, as the clothes would be literally thrown off in couple of weeks or months as babies outgrow them faster than you can blink your eye. For clothes we are sticking to Lulu Hypermarket against Centerpoint as Lulu is fiercly competitive in quality and price. For example a baby skull cap is KD .900 in Centerpoint but the same cap with added knits for feet and hands is available for KD 0.450 in Lulu. Now some of you may jump and say..hey what about the quality, well as the doctor says stick to natural fibers [cotton/wool] and wash the clothes before you put them on. It doesnt matter where you get them from as long as its in the budget.

Furniture is a big one in terms of expense as its costlier and will be rendered useless too quickly. Furniture here would include baby car seats, prams, cots, storage options etc. Since we have twins we have to double up everywhere. We found prams in KD 100+ range in MotherCare, Baroue and similar outlets and we found the same stuff for KD 30-50 range in lots of local stores from IKEA,Mahameed, Awladana, Lulu, Friday market, and Farwaniya furniture area. So again go with the head here and shop smart. Since the babies are too young to venture out yet..we are yet to buy some of these things. Still we know which stores to hit when time comes. Same story with toys too. Yet to explore the toy sections.

Anyways…lots of things to discover yet, and lots of suggestions are coming our way. If you guys have been through the parenthood pangs…do drop in a comment and lets hear your words too. There is always room for improvement and learning on our part.