When a bargain isn't a bargain

[TheBeesKnee]

I was thrilled to find a wooden mamas and papas cot in a charity shop for £30. Convinced my partner that it was an absolute bargain. Got home, assembled it, found that it's very old and the mattress size is not standard - it takes a125x65cm mattress, which I can't find anywhere online so I assume they don't make them anymore?

Either way, I can wedge an entire bath sheet at one end. Not safe sleep, is it? Now I'm going to have to take it to the tip as well. Brilliant, another chore to add to my to-do list, just what I wanted.

My baby has outgrown the bedside crib he was sleeping in so this was really needed. Now I'll going to have to buy a new cot too.

Email mamas and papas?

I don’t have a solution but feel your pain.
My bargain charity shop cot came without the bolts to put it together and it took 3 goes to order the right ones, with a sleep deprived brain. They were too heavy to be worth return postage.

And say what, I bought an ancient cot, do you happen to have a spare mattress hanging around the warehouse? 😂

This happened to me too. I ordered a foam mattress and had it cut to size to fit the wedge them covered with a mattress protector and a
couple of fitted sheets.

A quick Google showed me what I expected, you can have them cut to size just like adult foam mattresses......babymattresesonline for £47👌

A friend of mine had a family cot, exactly the same issue. She got a made to measure one from the internet, it wasn’t too expensive.

Certainly worth emailing the company- they may still make the size for sale in another country. Or just get a mattress made. Cheaper than a whole new cot.

Loads of easy fixes. This post shows three sleep safe options that you could adapt

www.instagram.com/reel/CwoLEsft0py

A local foam supplier will sort you out for a reasonable price. We ha the same situation. There are also sellers online who specialise in reasonably priced and safe bespoke mattress sizes

Mamas and Papas do funny sizes so much harder to just buy. My eldest is coming up 18 and I got additional mattresses from the website mentioned above. I was always very happy with their service.

https://babymattressesonline.co.uk/

Another option is to buy a mattress slightly too big and unzip the cover, cut it down (a bread knife or electric carving knife works best on foam) and then recover, tucking any spare fabric under the sheet or sewing it.

An unwanted cot has lots of uses. See Pinterest!

Highly recommend babymatressonline have used them for both my children's cot mattresses (Stokke ones so unusual shape/size), very quick and nice quality

Looking at it that might actually be the cot
I had, does it have a hidden dropside? I loved that cot, despite the stupid non standard sizes.

Yes, the side drops! It's pretty cool actually, I'm disappointed that this is how it's ended up.

I've taken it apart now, I think I will offer it for free in case someone wants to go through the faff of ordering a custom mattress. If it converted into a toddler bed as well I probably would have ordered a custom mattress but as it doesn't we'd need to replace it in a couple of years anyway.

DP has a day off tomorrow so I think we'll drive to IKEA and just get a cheapy cot. Then when we hopefully have another baby we can move him into a toddler bed and reuse the cot.

Gosh it's all so tiring.

@Topofthemountain it's the Sherwood cot!

I'm pretty sure that was the one. It will do someone a good turn. Hope you get sorted with one tomorrow.

I feel all nostalgic now seeing your little one in the cot.

And also officially very old. 😂