New Baby: What to buy cot/cradle ??

[mrspaddy]

Hello, first baby on the way. I think we are not going to bother with a Moses Basket. We are getting a three in one travel system for baby and doing up a nursery and putting a cot in there.. hopefully one that will turn into a Junior Bed eventually.
In the meantime the baby will be sleeping in out room (six months or so). My friend is using her pram as a sleeping arrangement for her baby. I am not fully comfortable with this.. maybe this is ok though?
We were thinking of getting a cradle for our room (smallish room) and hope to get five months or so out of it.
We have money to spend but don't want to buy stuff we will hardly use, mainly due to storage afterwards. We are hoping to try again for another baby so hopefully get use out of stuff then.
Thanks in advance for any advice x

Hi and congratulations!
We had a cot bed in DS's room and a cradle in our room which he used until he was 6 months. Didn't bother with a moses basket as they were smaller than the cradles and we thought he would grow out of it too quickly. We had a cradle with a rocking option but tbh we never used it. Think ours was from John Lewis for around £100 but I expect you could find them cheaper elsewhere.

I think you have to be careful using prams for long sleeps - something to do with the mattress ventilation and risk of cot death? I believe some prams are designed to be used for longer sleeps though. Your friend might want to check this out - if she hasn't already done so?

Happy shopping!

Thanks a million.. that is what I had concerns with.. the synthetic nature of pram. Will be handy in the day for little naps but think I am going to go for cradle. Put cot in their little room and put blackout blinds in there.. feel better now. Saw nice one on amazon.. not bad if you get six months out of it. Cheers.

Have just remembered that he wasn't in the cradle for quite 6 months as he got too big for it! We used a travel cot for the last month or so -trying to stick to keeping him in our room for 6 months and our room was much too small for the cot! But he was quite a long baby!

The other thing with prams is that they gather dirt when you're using it outside and apparently that can be dangerous too. The line we're getting is suitable as a crib but we were warned that it's still not a good idea for that reason.

We're getting a bedside crib. We ordered the nct one at the weekend!

We were lucky enough with our son that we could fit the nursery furniture into our bedroom, so our son was in his cot from day 1 till January (20 months) at 7 months we moved him out of our room. It was really lucky as he outgrew the pram at 6 weeks.

This baby we have bought a crib (we have moved house) we may now have 3 bedrooms but they are much smaller :(. When the baby out grows the crib they will be into their own room, as there s no way to fit even a travel cot into our room. So hopping the crib is long enough for them to be their for 6 months

Congratulations on your first baby!

It is a nightmare trying to work out what to buy. I bought a Moses basket and cot bed and in hindsight wish I'd just bought a small cot. My DD grew out the Moses basket by 3 months and we then put her in the cot bed in our room. It was lucky we have a big bedroom as it is huge.

As the cot bed turns to a toddler bed (say to age 4 or something) then think if you want to have another baby. As we do so then the first one will need to move to a single bed so the second can use the cot bed. That's why I'd not have bothered with a cot bed and just bought a smaller cot and then just single beds (like I did as a child when my brother arrived).

Also my mum got a spotless cot off gumtree so check that out as we spent £800 on cot bed and nursery furniture... and my mum got a john lewis cot and changer for £35!

Although I would quite like to get on of those cribs that attach to the side of your bed - easy for night feeds and settling them.

We used the pram attachment for the first 10-12 weeks or so, then began putting him in his cot-bed (which will last till he is around 5 years old).

Our cotbed and changer came from John Lewis for about £100, lovely quality, has three height settings, so it may actually match the height of your bed - if you want to use it like a side-car sleeper, some people use bungee cords to attach the cot to their bed.

We are moving my dressing table out of our bedroom (into the nursery) so that the cot will fit in our bedroom. Once the baby is 6 months or so, we'll switch them back. We really didn't want to buy two things, particularly when the cradle will only be used for a relatively short space of time!

We are also doing the same as Katla and just getting a cot rather than a cotbed. The cots are smaller (so will fit into our room) and by the time we'd be putting dc into the cotbed we'll hopefully be thinking of another kid and will want the cot again, so will just move the kid straight from the cot into a single bed (what my parents did for four kids and we're all fine :) ).

I got a co-sleeper cot that you can turn into a regular cot later, this one:
www.amazon.de/FabiMax-Beistellbett-Babymax-Matratze-PROTECT/dp/B009WQFPJ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366708809&sr=8-1&keywords=fabimax

I didn't get a Moses basket but ended up borrowing one after a couple of days. I just moved him to his own room once he stopped night feeds at 6 weeks. If you want to keep the baby in your room for 6 months I would probably just get a travel cot because you can then use that for holidays too and really get good value out of it. x

Congratulations by the way!

Just saying, that in practise I moved into the baby's room and mostly slept on the very firm sofa bed in there. DD1 hated the moses basket, hated to be swaddled and kept waking by hitting her hands off the sides of the basket. It was much easier to put her straight into a cot and for me, being able to watch tv on an ipad during night feeds without waking DH was a lifesaver. We binned the Moses basket after 8 weeks (not literally, gave the frilly dustcollector back to MIL) and didn't look back. DD2 lasted 3 months in the same frills but then DD1 hadn't moved into her new big girls bed so had to give that a bit of time.

Thank you so much.. yea the dressing table idea will prob work for me though I was hoping to put a blackout blind and dimmer in the nursery and put baby to sleep in it during the day rather than having to put blackout blinds on our window (very light room - bay window). A small cot might be better. Hadn't though about a travel cot.. that's a great idea. Cheers.

We used a crib, DS spent the first six months in our room as recommended on the SIDS guidelines. As far as I know a pram isn't recommended for night sleeps to do with lack of air flow/ventilation.

When he grew out of the crib he slept in a travel cot briefly until he went into his own room.