Why your second and third child cost less
Every new baby costs less than the one before. Reusing between siblings, and topping up from other families, is how you turn that into money kept.
The discount is real
ANU modelling of the HILDA survey put a first child at roughly $17,000 a year and about $300,000 over eighteen years, but each subsequent child at around $13,000 a year, or about $230,000 each (reported by SBS, 2023). That's a meaningful drop, and it isn't an accident.
A second child shares the big fixed costs a first one forced you into: the bigger home, the car, the routines you've already built. And a lot of the physical kit is bought once and used again.
Where reuse does the work
The cot, the pram, the carrier, the baby bath, the toys and most of the clothes can carry straight over, especially if the gap between children isn't huge. The trick is storing them well and knowing what's still safe to reuse.
Two cautions. Car seats have an expiry and shouldn't be reused if they've been in a crash. And anything covered by a mandatory safety standard, like a cot, should still meet it. Everything else is fair game.
The gap-year gap
If your children are a few sizes and seasons apart, you won't have kept everything, and the sizes won't line up with the calendar. That's where buying pre-loved to fill the holes, then reselling as you go, keeps the second-child discount from leaking away.
References
The per-child figures are estimates in today's dollars and vary with income, but the direction, cheaper with each child, is consistent across studies.
Related reading
Fill the gaps between siblings
Top up the sizes and seasons you didn't keep, and sell on the ones you're finally done with.
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