Thank you, SPS! I am totally going to check the babygrows from Zeeman. We still need to get a couple more, so that is one good tip.

I believe the kruik is meant to keep the baby warm in the first week or so, as Nerissa said. Besides, I have been told  that it's also really handy later to keep the bed warm during night-time feeds and the like. We live in an old, cold house and we expect our baby in November, so it seems like a good thing to have.

The washandjes are those washing mitts so very popular here in NL. These special ones are made of hydrophilic cotton and meant to wash the baby. They are very soft and thin, so you can reach every corner.

The alcohol is meant to sterilize the thermometer. There is no naval band in my list or my kraampakket, only a sterile clip. I've heard about different ways to deal with the navel, so I guess it's best to get what your kraamzorg nurse will want to use. Maybe somebody here with some experience can tell us more :-)

I have no idea about the consequences of not making the bed higher. Ours is ridiculously high, so it will be fine. Anyway, I know you can borrow special devices (bedverhogers) to temporarily lift the bed in those thuiszorgwinkels. You can get them from the 36th week. Apparently, you can even get a special bed if necessary.

Thank you, Osita! I've been told that Hema was always known for its cheap prices and poor quality, but my sources say that it has improved a lot in the last years. What I have bought there seems to confirm this (towels, some underwear, curtains even).

For our baby, I have bought quite some things from my kraamzorg list, as cloth diapers (hydrofiel en flanellen luiers), molton mattress cover, washandjes... Hema sells big packages of all these things for a good price and they seem to me as good as those from any other shop: they look the same and are 100% cotton. The kraamzorg directed me to buy the kruik (a sort of bed warmer) there as well. To me and my family back home, some of these items are new and I wonder if I will actually use them, but since I am totally clueless about caring for a baby, I will let the kraamzorg nurse teach me the Dutch way. So far, I find them competent and very experienced at the kraamzorg, so I trust them.

Besides, I also got those rompertjes that Peony mentions at the Hema. I am buying the ones with hooks that open completely at the front, advised by a recent Dutch mom. They look fine, feel soft and are as well 100% cotton -my criteria at this point. I am hoping though they won't fall apart when we actually start to use them in a few months, though :-)

First of all, congratulations!

I happen to be putting together all the necessary things for our first baby too, so I know what you are talking about when you say you don't know what half of the things in the list are. But I am getting there and you will too :-)

The kraampakket, at least as it was explained to us by the lady from the kraamzorg, is not the same as the list with baby items. The kraampakket contains things that the kraamzorg nurse will use to take care of the baby and the mom in the first days at home -special sanitary pads, sterile gauze, etc. I do not know if everything is really used, but I guess we will need a lot of the items.

My insurance does cover the kraamzorgpakket (I just requested it a couple of days ago), but you can buy one at "thuiszorgwinkels en drogisten." The thuiszorgwinkels are a special sort of shop to buy/rent things from crutches to breast milk pumps. Anyway, maybe you know all of this by now.

As for baby items, I don't know how your list is, but mine seems very reasonable. I got a couple of those overdone lists from shops and the like, but the one from the kraamzorg is nothing like them -actually it looks a lot like the one Osita wrote.

Babydump.nl and Babypark.nl (they also have traditional shops across the NL) have a huge selection of all things baby. So far, I find the prices for "big" things quite allright -we have actually bought the baby furniture and the stroller at Babypark. Both shops have nice offers, i.e. free baby car seat with the purchase of a complete stroller. Smaller stuff is more pricey there, I think. I am buying a lot of the items in the Hema (clothes but also blankets, towels, bed linnen, kruiken, etc.) and Ikea has also some good things.

Good luck with everything and I hope I was of some help!