To not be expected to have a masters degree in engineering to assemble anything baby related?

[glamourbadger]

I'm currently attempting to assemble a Babyden playpen - attaching wallplate (C) to lock fitting (B) following steps 10 A, B and C.

Why is everything child related so complicated to assemble? I'm a fairly logical person yet I always screw everything together incorrectly, unscrew it damaging something, throw it across the room in a fit of rage (narrowly missing a toddler or two) then leave till DH comes home from work.

What is the most complicated piece of kiddy kit you've had to assemble?

Probably dd's winnie the pooh mobile - it came in ten squillion little pieces and pictorial-only instructions that didn't make sense. In the end I did it but was left with a bag of bits that I'm sure I should have used somewhere and the nagging feeling that at any time it would all come crashing down on her head, thus invoking a wtp phobia that would see her in counselling in later life.... I overthink these things, don't I?

ps the babydan was godawful too! I never got as far as trying to attach it to the wall!

Ds's Mr Men trampoline, I couldnt work out what way the stretch stuff was meant to be pulled over the bars and also couldn't do it as it nearly took the strength of 10 men to pull it tight enough (well DP broke a sweat)
Got fired and left till DP came home.

micralite pushchair wheel also pictoral instructions that just showed he wheel sliding on but it didn't then it suddenly went and trapped my finger it hurt so much that i thought it was broken - some of these things would be easier with no instructions at all

Oh sympathies - thankfully I'm now the other side of all that but I used to think just the same. Everything was a fight to the death.

Trying to show granparents how things worked too was 10x worse! My dad never got the hang of some of it.

My all time favourites to hate though were car seats. The straps! Either too loose or too tight - some of the choice words I used to mutter were probably not what I wanted dc to be hearing And impossible to remove covers. How mad is that?? Of course you need to wash the covers regularly where toddlers and babies are concerned.

I nearly had a ceremonial bonfire in the garden and danced round it when we no longer needed all the stuff

oh don't get me started on carseats why do they make it so you can't adjust the straps without taking the baby out of the thing lol

A baby gate that took me 3 days to work out how to open it once it was up

Anything from Ikea

A couple of years back I spent all of Xmas day assembling nephew's playmobil pirate ship, and gave up completely on the rigging.

But I did work out how to adjust the straps on dd's new car seat much more quickly than the supposedly trained chap from Halfords - apparently he knows how to do the maxi cosi ones but not britax ones . So while he was faffing, I read the instructions...

Don't know if this counts, but I decapitated the top of my thumb while fitting the battery from dh's camera to its charger (imo men count as honorary children sometimes )

'So while he was faffing, I read the instructions...'

And therein lies the difference between the sexes

Indeed what is it with car seats!

I got a new britax one for DS and the instructions were frighteningly complicated - so I just used common sense and managed to adjust it. We went out for one drive in my dad's new car - DS threw up all over the car sear and it is impossible to take apart to clean it properly.

If there are any inventor types on mumsnet why not invent a disposalbe (hmmmm not v envir friendly but necessary in some cases) sick proof car seat cover that can be ripped off when a child is sick?

IDC - now there's a business idea: there is definitely a gap in the market there somewhere

OMG Roskva are you me?

That blinkin' pirate's ship was the bane of our lives last Christmas (I also spent what felt like DAYS fidding with it for my nephew).

The covers do come off of Britax car seats, btw. You have to pull all the straps through to the back in the same way that you would do to adjust them. Then stick them in the machine at 40.

I don't know about you lot but some Kinder Egg toys still defeat me. Why can't they come ready assembled?

I'd just like to say that DH and I spent 2 hours assembling DS's new bed on the weekend. No one got cross and we only made one mistake.

Then again, we are both engineers...

omg kinder eggs are evil things i can't even get the blinkin thing open to get the toy out most of the time!

A travel cot that my mother bought - that can now never ever be taken apart because I am NOT going through that again...

I made dp do the pushchair... and got in the bath. I had a looong bath.

YABU. A masters is not enough, you need a PhD at the very least.

I can't put my dd's scooter up or down - having said that, it was 2nd hand and will be replaced on her birthday very shortly. Bloody thing just defeats me.

Am pregnant with my first, DH and I stood in Babies R Us 'roadtesting' prams/pushchairs various.
Me: 'Can you collapse it easily?/How does the car seat attach?/How does the recline work?' and questions of this ilk...
DH: 'I've got a bloody engineering Masters segree and I still can't work it out!'
So NYANBU, as someone suitably qualified still can't do it!

I bought a wall mounted stairgate in Feb (I think it was a babydan) After 4 attempts at putting it together following the pictures and looking at the picture on the box I threw it behind the wicker chair in my front room, it stayed there till we moved last month when I threw the bloody thing out!!!

i hate the pop up tents we had one and it went up first time and we could never get it back into it's ridiculously tiny bag that it came in again