OP, when the baby is a little older you can also foster their love of reading at the library. Children's story time could be your special time together.

Tj maxx and Marshalls often have pretty decent books for around 4 bucks

$200 on books IS nuts. However, does your husband make a habit of being like that?

He could have waited until you were in the car.

And you need to return a bunch of those books IMO. You can read to your child without having a library in their room.

I find great joy in reading and love reading to my DS (and love when he brings books to me to read to him!), have a personal library of 800+ books, and think nothing of dropping $50 or more at Kramerbooks every other week......and think spending $200 on baby books in one go when you're 6 months pregnant is the absolute height of insanity.

Nobody has picked up on the most important thing — OP was not read to as a child!! This is not about the books, it’s about her doing something meaningful for her and symbolic of the better way she wants to raise her son. OP, your DH screwed up big time. I’m so sorry. Try to explain to him what these books mean to you. And order a nice dessert from room service!

What is your financial situation, OP? I’m sure over the years I have spent way more than that on children’s books, but it was not a financial hardship for us. We have no student loans, a reasonable mortgage, a reserve fund for emergencies, good retirement funds and paid-for cars. If you don’t have those things and have childcare in your future, maybe your husband perceives you may have money problems ahead, especially if you’re splurging on non-essentials.

If the night is ruined, it is because you choose for it to be ruined. How you respond is your choice. You could have responded to his comment with a huge smile and "Sure thing! I'll get that $5 to you right away."

$200 on books?! Team Husband. Lady, that's way overkill. Wayyyyyyy

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone is being hard on OP. It's her first baby, and she is excited to share something she loves with him. She excitedly chose some books, which is clearly a special experience to her, and then her DH squashed her joy.

Now, yes, $200 on baby books is way overboard, so he was probably right to be annoyed at the amount of money being spent. But we should all try to remember what it was like to be pregnant with our first, and cut OP a little slack.

Hopefully she'll take some of these comments to heart.

Maybe, if it is just books. Let's ask her how much she has spent on the nursery, and clothes, and baby gear...

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone is being hard on OP. It's her first baby, and she is excited to share something she loves with him. She excitedly chose some books, which is clearly a special experience to her, and then her DH squashed her joy.

Now, yes, $200 on baby books is way overboard, so he was probably right to be annoyed at the amount of money being spent. But we should all try to remember what it was like to be pregnant with our first, and cut OP a little slack.

Hopefully she'll take some of these comments to heart.

+100

Wow lady. Dial it back

I think everyone is being hard on OP. It's her first baby, and she is excited to share something she loves with him. She excitedly chose some books, which is clearly a special experience to her, and then her DH squashed her joy.

Now, yes, $200 on baby books is way overboard, so he was probably right to be annoyed at the amount of money being spent. But we should all try to remember what it was like to be pregnant with our first, and cut OP a little slack.

Hopefully she'll take some of these comments to heart.

Why was your husband paying $100 towards something he didn't want. Did you expect him to money up money for what you wanted? $200 worth of books is ridiculous but if you decide to spend that, spend it out of your own money (since it seems you have separate accounts).

You are too caught up in trying to look good and seem like the best parent instead of just living in the moment.

OP, my twins are 7 and I don't know that we've every spent $200 in one shot on books. And we have probably 500 books for them in the house (after having sold a ton at consignment sales). As people mentioned, thrift stores, consignment sales are great. Also there are used book stores in most major cities. Also most public libraries have a cart somewhere near the front door or checkout desk that have books that the library is getting rid of that you can buy at a discount. Last, I shop at places like https://www.betterworldbooks.com/. They sell new books at a discount and used books. They collect used books at universities and libraries throughout the US. But an important part of the company is that a portion of every book sale goes to charitable literacy support, either supporting local reading programs, donations to public libraries and simiar projects.

$200 is way overboard in brand new books for an as-yet-unborn. As another PP pointed out, at this point, the words don't matter. An unborn infant cannot process words. What they process are the tones of your voice, and the emotions that you are are conveying. This is why people often play music to unborn fetuses. You can and should read, but what matters most is your emotional state and how you convey what you are reading, so it is true that you can read anything to your child and it will feel your love.

Seriously. My daughter is 15 months old and I don't know if we have spent $200 on books. We buy them used unless it is a title we really really want.