Lisa&Martin

Hi Spenner. I must confess i didn't come across anything that mentioned not being able to send personal items so I was honest about what was in there. I put 'clothes (used) - no shoes' and also 'craft items', 'pram accessories' 'children's books and toys - used'. The reason I put no shoes is that I know this is something quarantine like to look at in case there is mud or plant material on them. As far as I am aware you can bring items of a value up to $1000 without incurring customs charges, but I put the items as used and a total value of £350. There were no charges incurred this end at all, and the service was door to door.

Not necessarily cheaper than using a courier. I just returned from the UK with 60.6kg of excess luggage. I booked it through www.transglobal.org.uk and then selected the option to use TNT as the courier. It was picked up last Tuesday at 5pm UK time and delivered to me in Sydney last Friday at 10.30am AUS time and I could track it all the way online. Cost was £213.

Hi there, I had a baby in Sydney a year ago. Must say I felt completely out of my depth to start with but as time has gone on I have been so impressed with the services and resources available to new Mums here. In terms of buying things second hand, I did get a lot on Gumtree and Ebay, there is also something called the Baby & Kids market that is on in various Sydney locations every month or so. The hospital / obstetrician / doctor generally put you in touch with pre-birth info and resources, and post-birth there was a Early Childhood Centre at the local shopping centre where you went for a once-weekly meet-up for the first 12 weeks (the post-birth visit midwife gave me the details). I got to know a great group of Mums through that, we all still meet weekly, and different groups have formed swim groups for the babies, dog-walking groups etc, we do 'babes in arms' cinema trips (check out the local cinema listings, most cinemas do them). Other people go to a library service called 'Baby Bounce' which is free, involves songs and rhymes, there are also quite a few churches in the area that also host meet-ups which are not religious in content. I have also been so impressed by the parents' facilities in the shopping centres. Other friends who've had baby care & sleeping issues have called the Tresillian helpline or even been for a residential visit, I believe St John of God and Karitane also offer a similar service. There's a good link here: http://www.bubhub.com.au/directory/find/early-childhood-health-centres-sydney I think basically when you are pregnant you feel like you are pretty much on your own, especially as a new migrant, as time goes on and especially after you give birth you start to find out about all the various resources, it's been great, if your friends are sociable types they will have no problem at all. Lisa x

We also used James Wellbeloved for our black lab in the UK, he has always had a sensitive stomach and would get the runs if we fed him anything else. the only exception was Burns, which is also only available in the UK. Here we use Nutro Natural Choice with no problems, available in local pet store, and he has still kept his ridiculously shiny coat, always a good sign :-) They do lamb, chicken & fish versions.

I assure you your experience is entirely normal. Despite the fact that they speak English here, it is still a foreign language. You will be missing all the background knowledge as to how to do things, where to find things etc that you had in the UK, so doing some things will feel like an adventure, other things may feel like hitting a roadblock. And get used to using Satnav to drive everywhere, that way you will know the day you turn it off you have really become a local :-)

I am on a bit of a learning curve on car seats here at the moment as i am due to have my first child in Sydney in August. The fittings appear to be different, safety standards different, they have never heard of ISOFIX and the tether thing seems to be a legal requirement for insurance purposes. That's what gets you in the end, that whatever you judge to be best is not necessarily covered by your car insurance here. Some hospitals even require a certificate of fitting from an authorised fitter before they let you take your baby home....!!!! The previous poster was right in that you can pre-order child seats for a hire car as part of the package, and then when you get your own car if you haven't found anything locally to buy there are lots of hire companies for child seats, you either go to them or they can come and fit at your home. If I were you I would leave the UK ones behind, these are big items to try to bring with you if you are talking about bringing them on the plane, then go to one of the baby shops here and quiz them about all the fittings and options. You can then either buy new here, buy second-hand or rent, whatever suits you.

As a super-king size bed user I would recommend you bring some over, you will probably have found there aren't many outlets for this size in the UK anyway. Debenhams and John Lewis are good, I would imagine M&S do that size as well. Debenhams alraady ship to Aus for a reasonable fee, but you will find a lot of bed linen on their website says this size not available, when you can get it off the shelf in their shops. John Lewis has plans to ship to Aus later this year. So stock up a few year's worth in the meantime. I would also consider putting in a couple of good quality mattress protectors from John Lewis.