Anyway, af
ter reading reviews I originally thought I wanted a Davinci Kalani Crib. It was rated high for both safety and affordability by Consumer Reports, and converts to a toddler bed, day bed, and full-sized adult bed. The Babies R Us website has this crib all over it. However, upon visiting Babies R Us, I realized that this crib (and of the other highly-rated Davinci Cribs for that matter) are only sold online. I'm fairly uncomfortable buying a crib sight-unseen off the internet. How will I know if I can bend over it enough to pick up a baby without seeing it before spending hours assembling it?!
ter reading reviews I originally thought I wanted a Davinci Kalani Crib. It was rated high for both safety and affordability by Consumer Reports, and converts to a toddler bed, day bed, and full-sized adult bed. The Babies R Us website has this crib all over it. However, upon visiting Babies R Us, I realized that this crib (and of the other highly-rated Davinci Cribs for that matter) are only sold online. I'm fairly uncomfortable buying a crib sight-unseen off the internet. How will I know if I can bend over it enough to pick up a baby without seeing it before spending hours assembling it?!Today, on the way home from Buffalo, we stopped at Simon's Baby Furniture in Rochester. This place isn't advertised in Syracuse, but Brian's parents live closer to Rochester and told us about it. It'
s a great show room, and had 30+ cribs set up to look at. We really liked a crib made by Pali. This brand is highly rated by Baby Bargains, but is also very expensive. Some "deals" were available if you buy the crib and dresser together (which we would do) but it's still difficult for me to accept spending this much on a crib. However, the furniture we looked at today would be "lifelong" furniture, meaning it's convertible, sturdy, and timeless. So lil' Cool would be able to use it from birth until they go away to college.Finally, we also found one more we liked by Cocoon Cribs. Also rated highly, this crib/dresser combo was less expensive by a few hundred dollars, but wasn't as timeless (read: non-babyish when converted to a bed.) So I guess my point is, w
hat the heck do we do? Do we spend more money than we'd planned for something we love and know will last a long time? Or do we take our chances and buy something that we haven't seen (although we know it's highly rated) to save the cash? We also know both of the pricier cribs and dressers are made of solid wood and veneers, rather than MDF, which has been shown to emit Formaldehyde gas. A lot of cribs we've looked at have been solid wood, but the matching dresser is not, which just defeats the purpose of trying to be safe. Any advice??
5 comments:
We bought "cheapo" non-convertible cribs from BRU. We did this for several reasons. First, the people I know who bought convertible cribs haven't actually ended up liking the toddler bed or full-size bed that the crib becomes -- and haven't used it. Second, the convertible cribs are gigantic and we knew that we would need to buy 2 of whatever we purchased, and there's no way 2 convertible cribs would have fit in the nursery. Third, the cribs that we bought were around $200 apiece, I think -- which was much more reasonable than the $800 that a lot of the convertibles cost. There was no way I could justify spending that much money on cribs, especially b/c the boys will probably end up with bunkbeds at some point! I also didn't like the idea of picking out the bed that my teenager would someday be forced to use -- before my child was even born. Sounds strange, maybe, but it made sense to me! Like -- what if I picked out a white crib, and ended up having a boy -- and then the boy would obviously not want a white bedroom set when he was 15! I would personally recommend not spending a boatload of money on nursery furniture. And besides, if you plan on having more children, you'll need to buy ANOTHER crib -- so is it really worth spending so much money on multiple convertible cribs? Probably less expensive to buy a non-convertible crib now and then bedroom sets later on ... JMO!
As a non-mom and therefore my opinion may be off the mark, I would go with the cheaper because down the road, your child may want a new bedroom set and perhaps not want to keep the same thing for life. However, if it could be used as a daybed, then you may have a use for it in your basement down the road or if you have a spare room/computer room.
There is nothing wrong with having the same set for life, but as I think would it something I would do, I think that it may be nice to just have a crib that is a crib in case I have a few kids since headboards etc are not that pricey for younger ones.
Either choice is a great choice, it would come down to price and safety concern with how the product was made. - I guess I didn't really help at all. Elaine
We bought a convertible crib and mattress for around $400. It is huge and had to be assembled in his room or wouldn't have fit through the door way. Even though it is a convertible crib the half wall (the one you need when you are letting them get up out of the crib themselves) has to be purchased separately. That is kind of a pain. I didn't buy a changing table just turned and old dresser into on. I have liked changing him on a bed the best. Lukas likes to wrestle. I am glad that the crib we did buy is pretty sturdy since Lukas is over 30lbs and likes to jump. I do agree with Erin - don't get nuts spending a ton on nursery furniture. If you don't have a chair that rocks I do suggest getting one of those and a great stroller... but I am getting ahead of myself.
I just picked a crib I liked and didn't care about the features. I'm not a huge fan of the 'sideways' cribs that you show above, no reason in particular, they just don't look like 'cribs' to me. I like my crib to look more like... a cage I guess! Not because I like the 'cage look' in particular, that's just the best way to describe it. If you want to take a trip to Ikea when you come down we can.. =)
It helped of course that the crib I got was only $160. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60108663
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