Once Upon a Child in Maple Shade is officially newly reopened! Most South Jersey families are probably already familiar with the kid-focused secondhand clothing, toys and equipment store, but the Maple Shade location closed for a bit before reopening under new ownership. And new owners means a fresh start and a new shopping — and selling — experience for local families.

If you're looking to buy from them, you're getting gently used, name-brand kids' clothing, shoes, toys, equipment and more for less than you'd typically pay buying everything new.

And if you've got a baby or toddler, having those nice name brands without always having to spend the name-brand price really does make a difference. Kids are HARD on clothes. You need something that's going to survive the crawling, running, skidding across the floor and whatever else they manage to get into 😂 — but you also don't necessarily want to spend $50 or $60 on something they're going to outgrow in three months.

And if you're looking to lighten your kids' closets, you can bring in the clothing, shoes, toys and gear they've outgrown and see what Once Upon a Child is currently buying. Instead of donating everything and walking away empty-handed, you have the opportunity to declutter and get some cash back for the items they're able to take. Win-win!

I think it's also important to have realistic expectations when you're selling secondhand. If you bring in a shirt that originally cost $60, you're not going to get $50 for it — because the next parent isn't going to Once Upon a Child to pay $60 for it either. Part of the appeal of shopping secondhand is being able to find those name brands for a fraction of what they originally cost.

When my oldest was a baby and toddler, I shopped there pretty regularly. Their $1 onesie bins were always a great deal for a constantly growing baby, and secondhand shopping just made sense during those years.

Then when my oldest was 5, I found out Baby #2 was on the way.

There was a five-year age gap between my boys and, because apparently I thought I was done having babies, I had gotten rid of EVERYTHING from Baby #1. 😂

So there I was, pregnant again, waddling my much more experienced — and much more frugal — mom-self right back into Once Upon a Child.

By the second kid, I knew what I actually wanted to buy new and what absolutely did not need to be new because this baby was going to use it for approximately five minutes before outgrowing it.

So I secondhand-shopped A LOT.

My pregnant behind would happily waddle into Once Upon a Child looking for things like a Rock 'n Play — which aren't around anymore, by the way! — high chairs, Pack 'n Plays and all those other baby things that can get expensive really quickly when you're buying everything brand new.

I continued shopping there while my youngest was little, but once he hit around 5 years old, I kind of stopped.

Not because I had a bad experience or couldn't find anything. I just assumed we'd outgrown Once Upon a Child.

In my head, Once Upon a Child was where I went when I had babies, toddlers and little kids. Once both of my boys got bigger, I naturally moved on to your typical department stores and didn't really think about it anymore.

My kids are now 8 and 13.

School is coming up, and buying clothes and uniforms for two growing boys feels like a never-ending carousel of:

So I packed my 8-year-old into the car and we headed over to the newly reopened Once Upon a Child in Maple Shade.

And this is the part that genuinely surprised me.

My 8-year-old had a pretty good time going through everything and picking out things he actually liked. Shopping with him was surprisingly easy, too, because the clothing is organized by size, color AND type. Long sleeves and hoodies are together, shorts and summer clothes are together, so you're not digging through one giant rack hoping to stumble across the right size.

But what surprised me even more was the selection for my 13-year-old.

Because if you're a boy mom, you already know finding good secondhand clothing once they start getting into those bigger kid and teen sizes can be ROUGH.

And if you've got a teenager, you also know you can't buy anything that actually LOOKS secondhand. 😂 It needs to be good enough quality that you can basically trick a 13-year-old into not realizing Mom bought it secondhand.

I'll take that win.

Especially because at 8 and 13, we're still very much in the stage where I can buy something that fits perfectly today and somehow they're exposing ankles by Thanksgiving. 😂

I went into Once Upon a Child thinking it was still the place I remembered for onesies, toddler clothes and baby gear.