Bargain Baby Furniture

Looking for bargain baby furniture? It’s so fun to pick out baby stuff for the tiny new arrival … but wow, it can be expensive. For many parents, new nursery furniture can be a serious strain on the budget. Here are several strategies for finding furniture at prices below full retail:

Take advantage of sales …

This is one of the very best strategies for finding the furniture you really want at a discount. It’s also one of the toughest, because it involves planning ahead.

The best way to get bargain baby furniture at sales is to research and compare furniture months ahead of time … way before you need the furniture. Decide exactly what you would like to buy.

Find out what stores carry the items you like, within a reasonable traveling distance of your home. Also find out where you can buy the furniture online. (Our Baby Furniture Manufacturers page is a great place to start.)

Once you know where to source your furniture, start watching these stores for sales. For a local retailer, join the store’s mailing list so that you’ll get a flier in the mail announcing upcoming store sales. For an online retailer, check to see if they have an electronic mailing list that notifies customers of sales. Join these lists.

Meanwhile, you can be constantly on the lookout for the specific items of furniture you want. Once you know what you’re looking for, you sometimes find that it turns up in some unexpected places.

I went to a local store looking for chair upholstery recently … and found that they carried round cribs! At excellent prices! It’s not mentioned in any of their promotional materials. Who knew?

Baby furniture outlets …

You may know that outlet stores can be a great source for savings on furniture, clothing and other household items. If you’re making big purchases, it can sometimes be worth driving several hours to get to an outlet center.

I know people that drive two hours one way to another town to do their family’s clothes shopping twice a year … and they do any furniture shopping that they need to do then, as well.

So if you have a furniture outlet near you, that’s a great place to try first for bargain baby furniture. (Or better yet, a cluster of outlets ... for some reason, outlet stores seem to bunch up together.)

Those of us who don’t live near bricks-and-mortar outlet stores might turn to the Web to look for bargain baby furniture outlets. We’ve searched for outlets on the Web – visit our Baby Furniture Outlets page for listings of the discounters we found.

Resale baby furniture …

Families that hit yard sales, especially the larger and more organized yard sales (like the ones run by Mothers of Multiples in our area) can find terrific bargains. This is true bargain baby furniture.

You can also check local classifieds and internet listings for local families selling baby furniture their kids have outgrown.

One important resale caution ... We don’t recommend buying a resale crib. Newer cribs meet current safety guidelines, and that’s the bottom line for a crib. The best thing to do is buy a new crib that is certified by the JPMA.

If you do consider buying a crib resale, be very careful. Buy a crib manufactured in the last five years. Make sure it comes with a complete site of instructions, and go over it with a fine-toothed comb, making sure that all the parts are present and properly installed.

Most importantly, check the CPSC website for crib recalls and for the most recent crib safety requirements ... and make sure that your crib meets those requirements.

Building your own …

Now this is our most radical idea for finding bargain baby furniture. But it’s also, without a doubt, the most intriguing idea with the best potential for lasting rewards.

If you have any interest in woodworking, it’s a possibility. There are great woodworking plans available for baby furniture. You pick out your own wood, the type and color of finish, and the hardware yourself … and add your own finishing touches.

Parents who build their own baby furniture report that they save a fortune. But even more importantly, they gain a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. One father said after building a cradle for his first baby that he felt “like I’m taking care of her all the time, even while she sleeps.”

If you build your own crib, be especially careful to follow the woodworking instructions to the letter. Safety is critical in a crib, since it will be the only place you will ever consider leaving your baby unattended.

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