Baby items list for a newborn in Nigeria, with real prices

Ask ten people what to buy for a new baby and you get ten lists, most of them copied from a British or American site and none of them priced for the market you are actually shopping in. This one is ours. It is the list we give across the counter in Idumota, in the order we give it, with what things actually cost here.

Two things to say before the list. First, a newborn does three things: sleep, feed and get carried about. Anything that does not serve one of those three can wait, and most of it should. Second, the market prices below move with the exchange rate, so treat them as a budget to plan with and check before you pay. The prices for the items we sell ourselves are exact, and you can see them on our newborn starter set page.

Buy before the birth

Somewhere for the baby to sleep

A cot or bassinet with net sides and a mosquito net cover, ₦80,000. This is the single biggest item on the list and the one worth buying well, because it is used every night for eighteen months or more and then often used again for the next child. Keep it beside your bed for the first months.

You also need a firm flat mattress that fits the base with no gap at the sides, and two or three fitted sheets. Nothing else goes in. No pillow, no duvet, no cot bumper, no soft toys.

If your family travels between houses, and during omugwo most do, a portable baby bed that folds down into a diaper bag is ₦20,000 and saves you moving a cot to your mother's house.

The journey home

A car seat or a 4-in-1 carry cot, ₦80,000. A newborn cannot be carried home safely on a lap, and the first journey is the one most families forget to plan. A 4-in-1 carry cot fits with the car's own seat belt and then works at home as a rocker and a chair, so it earns its money twice.

If you will travel mostly by keke or bus rather than a private car, this is the one item on the list you can honestly skip, and a carrier matters more.

Clothes, first size

Budget ₦25,000 to ₦45,000 for the lot, and buy less than you think. Newborns grow out of the first size in weeks, and people will give you clothes at the naming ceremony whether you asked for them or not.

• Six to eight bodysuits or singlets
• Four to six sleepsuits that open all the way down, because you will be changing a diaper at two in the morning
• Two or three caps, socks and mittens
• Two receiving blankets or shawls, thin ones
• Two going out outfits, and no more than two

Wash everything before the baby wears it.

Diapers and changing

Budget ₦25,000 to ₦40,000 a month for disposable diapers at newborn and small sizes, which is where most of the recurring baby spend goes in the first year. Buy one bag of newborn size and one of size one before the birth and no more, because a big baby skips newborn size altogether and an unopened bag is money sitting on a shelf.

With them: wipes, cotton wool, a barrier cream for diaper rash, a changing mat or simply a folded towel on the bed. A dedicated changing table is not worth the money or the floor space.

Feeding

If you are breastfeeding, the essentials are cheap: three or four nursing bras, breast pads, a nipple cream, and something to drink water from that you can reach one handed at three in the morning. Budget ₦20,000 to ₦35,000.

Add a manual breast pump, ₦15,000 to ₦30,000, if you are going back to work or want somebody else to be able to do a feed. An electric pump can wait until you know you need one.

If you are formula feeding or mixed feeding, four to six bottles, a bottle brush and a steriliser or a large pot kept for the purpose. Budget ₦30,000 to ₦60,000 to start, and note that formula itself is a monthly cost that runs to tens of thousands.

Bathing and health

A baby bath or a clean basin, a soft towel, mild baby soap, methylated spirit and cotton wool for cord care, a digital thermometer, and a nail file rather than scissors. Budget ₦15,000 to ₦30,000.

A mosquito net over wherever the baby sleeps is not optional in most of Nigeria. If the cot has its own net cover you are already covered.

Buy in the first three months

A baby carrier, ₦20,000 to ₦25,000. Some parents want this from day one and they are not wrong. It frees both hands, it works on stairs and in the market where a stroller cannot go, and any adult in the house can wear it. If you already tie a wrapper well, read baby carrier or wrapper before you spend.

A stroller, from ₦63,000. A newborn needs the seat to lie flat, so a lie-flat model starts around ₦90,000 and a 2-in-1 with a carry cot that lifts off the frame is ₦170,000. A lightweight stroller at ₦63,000 is the right buy later, once your baby sits up. There is no hurry: most Nigerian mothers barely leave the house with the baby in the first six weeks anyway.

A hot water flask and a small torch or rechargeable lamp. Both cheap, both used every single night.

Leave until your baby reaches the stage

• A high chair. Around six months, when solids start.
• A playpen. When your baby is mobile, so six to nine months.
• A walker. Six months at the earliest, and read are baby walkers safe first.
• Shoes. Not until your child is walking outdoors. Shoes on a baby who does not walk are decoration.
• Toys. People will give you these. You will not need to buy any for a year.

What it comes to

A careful first-baby setup in Nigeria, bought new, lands somewhere between ₦250,000 and ₦400,000 before the monthly diaper and feeding costs start. The cot, the car seat or carry cot and the stroller are most of it, and they are also the three things that last longest and hold their value if you have another child.

If your budget is tighter than that, the honest order of priority is: somewhere safe to sleep, then a carrier, then a way to travel in a car, then a stroller. Everything under ₦50,000 that is genuinely worth owning is on our under ₦50,000 page, and a carrier plus a portable bed for ₦40,000 covers more of real life than any single item at that price.

For the bag you pack for the hospital itself, which is a different list, see the hospital bag checklist for Nigerian mums. If you are still deciding what to sleep the baby in, cot, cot bed or bassinet compares the three. And if relatives are asking what to buy you, send them what to buy for omugwo.