Value for money - shopping for your maternity wardrobe

The CPW (or cost per wear) principle is one of the most valuable fashion lessons you can learn. It’s a simple little maths solution that fashion editors, stylists and consultants have been using for decades. Very simply, an item’s worth is measured not just by how much it costs, but how many times it’s worn.

Many of us think of ourselves as fairly fashion savvy and have heard and applied this principle in our regular fashion shopping, but as soon as we’re pregnant, we throw all this good fashion advice straight out the window.

It’s fair to say that in order to get the most mileage out of your wardrobe these days, you need to be more clever with purchases. Rather than just buying cheaper outfits, you need to invest in things that are going to make more financial sense in the long run and this definitely applies to your maternity wardrobe.

As an example - $130 pair of jeans worn for 25 weeks, 4 times a week = $1.30 per wear!

Here are the top 5 fashion mistakes first-time pregnant mums make:

1. Skipping on maternity labels because they think they’re too expensive and won’t get as much use as regular labels.
2. Only buying in the first few months of the pregnancy, because they think by seven months they’re not going to get "that much bigger".
3. Buying heaps of cheap, poor-quality cotton stretchy singlets and T-shirts, which only fall apart and get too stretched to wear again.
4. Not realising that for one to two months post pregnancy, most women will be a similar size to what they were at three months pregnant.
5. Purchasing items that are too baggy and not the right fit, which makes them look heavier than they are.

From Cosmo Pregnancy Spring Edition 2011