...to think DS2 deserves better than a 15-year-old cot

[BEAUTlFUL]

Current "discussion" in Beautifulville: I think our 4-month-old DS2 deserves better than the secondhand cot we had for DS1, 5 years ago. It was already 10 years old then.

It's fine, basically. It has lived in two lofts, but I wiped it down with Dettol spray and DH has fixed it together. It's plastic-coated wood, so DH says I'm wrong to think it's "mouldering under the weight of a million germs".

We tried to put DS2 in it tonight (in his Moses basket, inside the cot) but his nose snuffled up and he got upset. I think he could smell the Dettol spray, or the sawdust from the extra holes DH had to cut to fit new bolts on the cot.

A new one is £70 from Ikea. Am I wrong to want him to have a new cot? Or is DH right to think we should do our bit to save the Rainforests by not buying new? (He has social conscience.)

Over to you!

lol lady my sons are forever creeping in our bed sometimes to the point that dh ends up on the settee and me in a bunk bed

It makes me laugh when I see him with his mates acting all cool and hip, then he gets tucked up in bed with me and his tatty little bear
Last night he came in to our room to watch QI, dh was in the bathroom and came in to find ds sprawled out, dh ended up sat watching it in the bedroom chair!!
(We have got a tv in the living room, by the way, but i end up asleep on the settee if I watch anything after about 9 o'clock down there!!!! getting old, you know )

I would use the old one, I don't really see the point of buying a new one when the one you have will do the job perfectly well.

Our dc have had a second hand cot then a hand-me down cot as i needed one with a drop side. so long as you can still get a mattres, personally i'd expect a cot I bought to do all my dc's.

It is nothing to do with "deserves". What a strange concept.

If it is a fully functional cot I would stick with it but I am very frugal

and I am very mindful of waste, landfill and all that stuff

Also I really like the idea of baby items being passed on from baby to baby.

There is a moses basket in my family that has housed about 40 babies in the last 50 years!

sorry my kids had my cot, 30 years on

Actually it was my CRIB they had for 6 months or so in our room, then they had a 2nd hand cot (new matress)

Buy new.

Of course your little one deserves better! Why not have some love of his own?!

what has buying new stuff when you have perfectly serviceable old stuff got to do with love?

Yes, because money = love.

Obviously poor people don't love their children very much.

colditz

but have you noticed it's the poor who tend to splash the dosh?

say I love you with consumables- how comforting. I think my DCs would really prefer a cuddle.

yes - a cuddle with the same arms you used for your previous babies

So, to recap, I should buy a new one, yes?

Aww, OK. I'll stick with the old one. I admit, it's just a paranoid thing, because of... you know. That awful thing that can happen to them in cots. I thought a new cot might be safer. Will get a new mattress (obviously), and I'll wrap the mattress, and he'll wear his breathing monitor and sleep next to me, and freeze till he's 19 under no sheets or blankets whatsoever.

I couldn't buy a secondhand cot from someone I didn't know, without worrying that new cot might be "cursed" or haunted. I'd need (almost) to see written documentation that the child who'd used the cot before was healthy and thriving.

I'm not what you'd call rational.

lol they are just lumps of wood! A new mattress and a good clean, it'll be fab.

There is a bit of old cot bumper still tied to the cot from when DS1 used it. I took the bumpers off, except this one bit that I'd tied too tightly and had to leave on.

It's just a scrap of material. But for a moment, I actually wondered if it might be unlucky to have bits of material from years ago. Like old knots might form some kind of mystic spell, or a "stop here" sign for Satan. And if anything happened, old ladies would suck their teeth at each other and mutter, "You know, there was a knot on that cot, and she never removed it... What were she thinking? A knot always brings death..." etc. Honest.

now you're just being creepy..get a pair of scissors and cut the bit of cloth off. Burn said cloth of you have to...you could however look upon it as a good luck charm passed from DD to new baby

Sorry- DS1 to new baby!

my nieces and nephew had the cradle that my brothers and I slept in - so when dnephew 1 was born 18 years ago - the cradle was already
28 years old - then nieces who are 6 and 3 also slept in it - by then it would have been 40 years old!!!

My dd2 and 3 have slept in a cot that is I have no idea how old - it was loaned to us and it is on it's 4th baby. I am so grateful to
the friend who lent us these things - saving us money.

You're not wrong in wanting one but is it sensible and reasonable to get one??

ds slept in a crib that was 35 years old so i think you are being unreasonable. make it a family heirloom!!

I think it depends if it is a nice cot, tbh...people saying 'Ooh my child's cot was so and so years old,' well it might have been a beautiful old thing and actually very nice - if this thing with the newly drilled holes in it (does that contravene safety regs btw? ) is a masterpiece of ancient patina and you could picture it in H&G, well, then yabu...(with bunting I mean)

If however it is wobbly, cheapo nasty item which you would hide if H&G came to photograph your interior, get shot really.