Cotbed Buying Advice Needed

[Rachpuk]

I am currently very early in my pregnancy but have started doing a bit of reasearch on different things I will need for when the babies born.
I would like any advice people are willing to give me on Cots or Cotbeds. e.g Is it easier to have one that has a drop down side and so on.
Any advice warmly received.
Thanks
Rachel

i prefer cotbeds with a base that can be raised or lowered depending on childs age/ability. i made sure mine were made out of solid wood and had teething rails.

same as creamcrackers

I just bought a cotbed (due in July). The advice given to me was that you can have the cot at three different heights and then when the child needs a bed you can take the sides off and it suits a child up to the age of 6/7. It made sense to me to pay a little extra to get a cot bed to save the expense of buying a new bed!

Way I looked at it, even if I bought a new mattress when it was turned into a bed, it was still more cost effective than buying two!

Hope this helps.

yes our cotbedjust been made a bed..good buy i would say
..it went to different heights but no bar, which was safer once he started fiddlying around i felt..

got the best mattress so it would last,doing well very firm and supportive..

... but don't forget that if you're even thinking about a second child, the first one may need to be out of the cot/cotbed to make room for the next well before they grow out of it (esp if it last them till 6 or 7 ), so you might as well get a cot and then a normal single bed.

Drop-down sides can save your back hence are good... until the child works out how to drop the side by themselves and escapes.

We have the ancestral hand-me-down cot with a new mattress, but this is an econo-baby .

Would you have room for it in your bedroom ? SIDS advice is to keep the baby with you until 6 monnths ideally. We had a cot with several height settings and used that rather than the dropside a lot of the time.

I made a mistake with the cotbed I brought. The head and footboard bits go out at the top (not srraign up and down). It all looks nice when it is a cot but when it turns into a bed it doesnt butt up against the wall properly and has about a 6 inch gap down the side that I have to pad out with cusions, and ds still slips down. Very bad design.

Does that make sense?

Make sure you buy one which has flattish rails! Mine are quite pointy and very uncomfortable when you're leaning there for ages trying to settle your little one - even with a cushion! Also, I wish I had went for a dropside - or better still a bedside cot where the side completely slides under the cot. We went for a cotbed in the end. Happy shopping!

I bought a cotbed for my twins, i had always had cots before (and other twin had a cot). We turned it into a bed last year for my DS...he bounced on it-with materess on (as kids do) and all the wood snapped underneath. He was only just 2.

So my opinion on cotbeds have changed. Might be just a one off though..but there was no 'give' in it for the bouncing. Something to consider.x