Remember the time when parents were going all crazy and buying their babies ridiculously priced and completely useless items that were outgrown within a year and ended up on the Goodwill truck?

Well now, due to the recession, those parents have decided to stop indulging on such extravagant items that were supposed to be for the baby but were really for image-conscious mommies and daddies.

According to a recent online article, here are some of the baby items that have taken a financial nose-dive in the past few months.

2. Little Marc Jacobs Mary Janes – price tag $198 a pair. Cute but…Are you freaking kidding me? I don’t pay that much for a pair of shoes for me! Let alone shoes that are outgrown in 6 months.  There better be a LOT of siblings to hand those down to to justify that price. 

3. British Nanny – $500-$650 a week. ‘Nuf said.

4. Burberry Check Baby Onesie With Bonnet – $140 smackeroos for this little ensemble (be sure to pronounce “ensemble” in French for that price). Foolish purchase. Because we mommies know that nothing stains like baby formula spit-up. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend $140 for something that’s going to end up being used to wash my car.

5. Gucci Diaper Bag – $870 for this status bag. Really? To hold used diapers and burp cloths? But then women spend that much for a purse that holds lipstick, old gum and snotty tissues.  So why not?

There you have it. And honestly. I don’t feel badly for these companies. They rode the wave of frivolous spending and I hope they saved their money. Because I think those days are gone for a long while.

Look, while I haven’t bought the above high-priced items, I have been guilty of some wasteful spending where my kid is concerned. It’s in our nature as parents to want to please our children and give them the best.  Still, it’s really sad that it took a recession to put the brakes on this kind of money waste. Especially when there are children that go to bed hungry each night…IN THIS VERY COUNTRY!  

Wouldn’t it have been better to spend, say $200 on a Graco stroller and send the other $800 to a children’s charity? Unfortunately now that nobody has that kind of money to waste, nobody has that kind of money to give either.

But in case you are one of the lucky ones who still has money to burn…consider some of the following alternatives to that $900 diaper bag….

Michael Hoefflin Foundation for Pediatric Cancer at www.mhf.org

or

Feed the Children at www.feedthechildren.org

or any of the thousands of other children’s charities out there.

Remember, your child doesn’t need that $1000 stroller, but the money CAN help a child in need.