When we were planning to have our first child. First and foremost our retirement (FIRE) was priority, we did not want our children to be supporting us if we could not longer work. From there I was already allocating how much of our budget would go to immediate needs vs future needs such as college savings, ect. After much thought my wife and I decided that instead of focusing on saving for some future expense that might or might not happen, we decided to focus on their immediate needs and to expose them to various activities as early as possible. The thinking is why save up for college if they might not even get accepted, extreme example I know but the idea is spend the resources now to enable them to have their choice on which one to attend and to be in a position to get as much merit/need based scholarships as possible.
So, send them to camps or activities that might be on the expensive side. Take trips to broaden their horizons. I'm not advocating buying them 'stuff' or going to Disney. But get them things that will exercise their imagination and curiosity, books lots of books (after exhausting what your library has to offer of course). For us specifically that meant, one SAHP, taking lots of trips to museums, national parks, international travel, bunch of sports, music, and academic camps. I did just start a college fund with discretionary funds but it is not intended to cover the full cost for all of them.