Baby Bedding???

[justhayley]

Hiya please help baby bedding has got me totally confused!
What do i need to put in the cot and moses basket and does the baby actually sleep in a cot for the forst 6-12 months?

I just went to buy a mamas and papas quilt cot set but then it says suitable for 12 months +
So how does a newborn sleep and what do they need?

you can tell im expecting my first hey, must stop reading my pregnancy books and actually start on the baby books now!

The shops are totally overwhelming and everytime iv tried to ask staff a question they just try and sell the the store - fair enough its their job i guess but I havnt got money to waste on things that baby will never use. Iv started buying online instead - much easier option - but you have to no what your buying - which i dont!

I don't know why something as simple as bedding is stressing me out so much! I literally am unable to make any choices at the moment - even deciding what to have for dinner is a hard task, let alone thinking about keeping my baby safe when he sleeps!

Please dont worry about patronising me lots of very simple replys is fine :)

Thank you

Hayley x

Not much

Moses basket - first 0-3mths depending on size of your bubba, all you need is sheet on the bottom, top sheet and a couple of cellular blankets (one folded is often enough if your home is at recommended 18 - 20 degrees)

Then cot sheet on bottom and same on top but the bigger cot size, or you can use a baby sleeping bag which is often given as a gift these days I believe so start hinting

No quilts / pillows till much older (quilts 12+ month) and you don't need pretty bumper bars for cots either

HTH

a few moses basket sheets or pillow cases will do as my DD was sick on them so often I often ran out. Blankets for over the top. Baby will be in moses basket for around 12 weeks.

a few cot sheets and then baby sleeping bag instead of a quilt or you could carry on using blankets. Baby doesn't ned a quilt until they are much older. I agree with scotlass not to get cot bumper as they can be a suffocation hazard for little babies.

We had a crib, rather than a moses basket but I guess the same principle applies. When DS was very new we had a a fitted crib sheet over the mattress and then a blanket over the top - very early days we swaddled him too.

As soon as he was big enough we went for baby sleeping bags (he never was that keen on being swaddled / I wasn't very good at it!)

And one other tip I found really helpful when he was young. We had a fitted sheet over the mattress, but then used to put a flat sheet folded over several times where his head went, sort of tucked round the mattress. So almost where a pillow would go (although of course babies don't need / shouldn't have pillows). This was in case he was sick etc in the night - you could just whip the folded up flat sheet off and pop another one on without having to change to whole lot often, and it stops any sick etc soaking through to the mattress.

Not sure if I've explained that clearly sorry - it makes sense in my head, but at 34 weeks pregnant that doesn't mean a lot

Oh, and as others have said, you don't need cot bumpers, quilts etc or all the other pretty little things these shops sell.

And DS never slept in his cot until almost 6 months. He stayed in his crib in our room until that point, but if you've got a moses basket you might find they grow out of that sooner. Then just before he made the move to his own room, I started putting him in the cot for naps in the day so he'd get used to the cot.

Grobags are brilliant but extremely expensive new. I've bought some lovely ones hardly used on eBay for a few quid.

Then you just need a moses basket (buy second hand basket if you can, with a new mattress from amazon for about a tenner) and some Moses basket sheets. That's you sorted until the baby is too big for the mattress!

I kept DS in grobags until he was about 2 as he was a really active "sleeper", they are great.

NCT sales / eBay are well worth looking into.

DD went into her cot at 4 months, in a baby sleeping bag on a non-fitted sheet, was in sleeping bags till about 2 years now has a quilt, i have bought sleeping bags for this baby, i don't think you can go wrong with them TBH

Several covers for crib/cot mattress, two/three baby blankets and at least two baby sleeping bags (you can get them from newborn in TKMaxx). That is all you need as far as I'm concerned!

Mothercare 100% cotton sheets are ridiculously overpriced compared to the same thing in Tesco (£17 to £4 IIRC).

Our DS slept in his pram during the day for the first few weeks because I didn't want to be climbing stairs all the time! It had a flat base so I didn't feel too guilty and it's a good cheat if you're in a tiny house :)

Mine had a swaddle to begin , then a sleeping bag. Had a cellular blanket but didn't use it much.

I had a crib too, which lasted until DS was about 11 weeks and then he went into a cot.

For the crib and cot we had at least 3 fitted sheets (MIL's rule was 1 to use, 1 to wash and 1 spare). I had a billion muslins and to begin with I put these on top of the sheet under his head so I didn't have to change the sheet during the night.

For the first 6 weeks we swaddled in a sheet, then when he started kicking those off we moved to a sleeping bag (again 3 of those!) - I'd recommend the Grobags rather than others as they unzipped from the bottom for easy changing! We had 2.5 tog in winter and 1 tog in summer and he wore them until he went into a bed aged 2.

I did get a duvet and cot bumper (because they looked cute and were a bargain) and I used the former as a padded blanket on the floor. I tied the bumper around the crib because I was worried about him scratching himself on the wicker, then transferred it to the cot so it was familiar, but got rid of it when I started using the drop side on the cot. They weren't useful enough to have paid full price for!

Would also recommend avoiding mothercare - big supermarkets are much cheaper, or look online.

thank you everyone, youv just saved me hundreds - looks like I don't really need that much at all bedding wise. Feeling much better now will keep it simple. I can't believe how much they charge for cot bedding sets when really you don't need any of it!

Thanks Hayley xx

Ps are cellular blankets for cots and Moses baskets or prams?

We had a crib instead of moses basket for DS, the crib lasted him more than 6 months.

We had a couple of fitted sheets for the mattress, a couple of flat sheets, and a couple of cellular blankets to go on top of the flat sheet.

I would avoid using a cot bumper - we got one for DS's crib - at first, when putting him in feet-to-feet, he was too short for the bumper to be between him and the crib bars, so bumper was of no practical use anyway.

And then, more seriously, shortly after he grew long enough for his head to be near the bumper, I walked into the bedroom to catch him trying to eat the bumper. He'd hooked his arm round the corner and was stuffing his face into it. I removed the bumper immediately - I was scared of DS suffocating himself on it after that.

And cellular blankets that are the right size for cribs / moses baskets are also the right size for prams.

You can get two sizes of blanket , one for each. Babies are supposed o have blankets with holes in them so they can still breathe if they go underneath them.

If baby is wrapped in a cotton swaddle, do they also need a blanket? Sorry for hi-jacking

If you do buy a moses basket second hand don't forget they are cane/wicker/raffia and so can harbour germs. After we got ours out of storage for our second baby we vacuumed it thoroughly with an upholstery brush and sat it in the sun to sanitise it a bit. You obviously can't run disinfectant or bleach over the basket or it will still be there when you put your baby in it.

There are some tips online for cleaning baskets which is where we learnt the vacuuming trick.

Pony At the expense of being totally unhelpful, it depends how cold it is in the room. Summer- unlikely, Spring and autumn- maybe, Winter- probably.

You can tell if the baby is too warm/cool by checking their neck (and they're also quite good at letting you know if they're uncomfortable!)

I used the carrycot of the Bugaboo for the first 6 wks (fitted jersey bottom sheet, Miracle blanket swaddle, single layer cellular blanket if needed)

6 wks onwards I had him in the cot. Switched to grobags at 4 months (quite late but he didnt have great arm control and would repeatedly whack himself in the face if not swaddled). Def look on ebay for grobags. You can pick them up for a few pounds vs £25 new.

15 months- I got him a duvet.

Oh and one last thing..........MATTRESS PROTECTORS- BUY THEM!! There will be leaks

Thanks for that Real, we have one of those wee egg-temperature things for the room, but I guess just feeling yr baby is as good an idea as any!