Please recommend me a cot (or tell me about a cots to avoid!)

[RandomCatGenerator]

Hi everyone

Just as the title says really! I would really appreciate recommendations for cots and cot beds.

My baby is very young still, we’re 4 months off needing a cot, but I’d like to weigh up the options as they’re expensive and long lasting options. And I’m a bit overwhelmed by choice!

Thanks so much for any input

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MNHQ

Sorry, to add - happy to consider all prices, longevity is important, and would like something that isn’t totally unattractive :)

We were happy with a 2nd hand john lewis one with a new mattress. Sold it for what we paid when realised DC no.2 slept better in her travel cot (which was free from a neighbour)...

We went with an IKEA one. Reasonably priced and does the job.

We have Ikea one with drawers under. Turns into cot bed. We brought a little green sheep mattress to go on it.

I loved my Stokke Sleepi. I bought it second hand and it’s done my 2 girls and still in great condition. I had mattresses made for it and just used normal cot sheets and they fit fine.

It grows with the child with the extensions and it’s very pretty.

Whatever you do OP avoid cots which don’t have a side which slides down. We made the rookie error of buying one with a fixed side 🙈 It was during the pandemic when we couldn’t visit any stores to look at furniture so we just went by the shiny and nice looking pictures online. Big big mistake.
I would also steer away from the multipurpose crib/cot/bed set ups which you can adapt through the stages. It means you have to store all the extra parts somewhere which isn’t easy when you have little storage.
Basically stay away from the Gaia baby Serena range, it looks nice but isn’t practical. 😂

Oh and maybe don’t bother with a wooden cot, our little one bangs her legs around and seems to twizzle around a lot so we worry about her hurting herself and cot bumpers are discouraged.

@TheGriffle

I loved my Stokke Sleepi. I bought it second hand and it’s done my 2 girls and still in great condition. I had mattresses made for it and just used normal cot sheets and they fit fine.

It grows with the child with the extensions and it’s very pretty.

Came on to say exactly this pretty much. Got ours for £50 on eBay then bought new mattresses. It’s beautiful, and worked as a cot from 6 months and is still in use for the 3 year old now.

We’re got a IKEA cot bed, and it’s excellent. DD went in when she was 6 months, and apparently it should last her till she is 7 ish.

They’ve got various designs but I think they’re all similar in practice.

They start with the mattress up at a high level, and you then put it down when they’re on the move.

IKEA 👌 lasted both ds2 and DD is currently in it. Easy to build, good price and easy to adjust when it needs lowering. Becomes a cot bed too

2 IKEA cot beds here. You can take the sides off to turn into a toddler bed. Building it was easy. The only reason we replaced it for DC2 was because it got damaged during a moved. The current one we have is Sundvik.

I have baby elegance from argos. No complaints.

Ideally you want a big cot with a ladder on the side so you can climb in to nurse your baby to sleep. I used to be able to put my ds down in his cot without waking him up, but everything changed when he hit four months…

I have a mama and papas one which is full sized, has 3 levels for the mattress and turns into a toddler bed. We’ve just converted ours and very cleverly all the pieces needed for the toddler conversion are already in use in the cot so you just move them around. I’m very impressed and it should do my son until he’s 4

The Tutti Bambini one I have looks lovely, but their customer service was so bad I'll never, ever buy from there again!

Go for a cot-bed. Get one where both ends go shorter, the ones where one end stays tall are wibbly wobbly. Our twins 1st one was like that and it annoyed me but it did last until they were 5, we had a cheap toddler bed from IKEA when they needed a second one. Our youngest has an East Coast cot-bed, used it from her 1st day home. She sleeps well in it now at 8wk, goes 6-8 hours at night.

Thank you so much everyone!

@TheGriffle @Jujujuly the nonstandard mattress size made me hesitate with the Stokke Sleepi. It looks lovely. What do you mean when you say you had mattresses made for it - where / how? And how easy is it to find bedding for it?

Lots of votes for IKEA. Any other specific models to look for apart from the Sundvik? There’s always so much choice with IKEA…

Ours was Ikea stuva with the two drawers underneath, only bought last year but it seems it’s no longer sold, and they sell a different drawer model instead which looks quite nice and converts with little toddler sides

The drawer def helps with storage

Cots are pretty much just boxes. Think about mattress more than the cot part. Our DC went from next to me thing to a cot bed, second hand John Lewis ones. They lasted from 6mo to 5 years just about so a good investment for £20!

@RandomCatGenerator I got toy mattresses made by Babymattressonline very reasonable and safe, I bought 4 mattresses from them over my 2 girls and they were prefect every time.

My not toy!

My kids broke a cot recently and I asked on our local Facebook page if anyone was giving one away - I had 8 offers within an hour! I would recommend seeing if you can pick one up for free.

I also just bought Asda cot bed sheets and they fit ok, just had to tuck them under a little but never had any problems with them. You can buy the proper Stokke fitted sheets though but I never did. The only downside is the sides don’t drop down so if you have trouble lowering your baby into the cot when it’s on its lowest setting then it won’t be any good.

@RandomCatGenerator I got a fancy artisan organic handmade mattress (🤣) from
Naturalmat. It was fairly expensive but the cot itself was so cheap and it was my fob so I splurged. I got one Stokke sheet free with the cot (eBay purchase) and then just used ordinary cot sheets as spares. I also have a mattress protector from little green sheep - they make them for the sleepi.

www.naturalmat.co.uk/quilted-coco-mat-for-stokke-sleepi-be

www.thelittlegreensheep.co.uk/organic-mattress-protector-to-fit-stokke-sleepi-leander-cot/

*pfb not fob!

Ikea.