How much does it cost to raise a baby in Singapore? Nate turned one recently and in total, we calculated that we've spent $25,000 on key essentials for his first 12 months of life. Here's how our breakdown looks like: I've excluded stuff like birthday parties and holidays, because these are non-essentials that you can choose to forgo if you wanted to. The bulk of our expenses went to paying for healthcare and essentials like food, diapering, and caregiving. We hired a full-time helper to take care of our baby, and despite the cost, that finally allowed us to go back to work and focus without too much worries. We saved considerably on baby equipment by buying almost everything secondhand, so that helped as well! As for insurance, costs were higher this year because of the maternity insurance we bought, but we've since cancelled it. Moving forward, we've covered our baby with 3 types of insurance...