Do I Really Need a Crib?

IMHO I feel a crib is more secure and permanent. We used a pack and play for travel and at grandparents house and for naps downstairs until our daughter was old enough for her crib. A crib is more stable when they get old enough to stand and learn to crawl out of. They will stand and jump in it and put their mouths on the top on the rail, pull on it etc. I see a crib like a regular bed you have in your house and the pack and play as being like a sleeper sofa or air mattress. It works well enough but not as nice as a real bed.

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I think after a certain weight they are uncomfortable in the playnpak. It doesn't offer much support and there isn't much cushion to sleep on. Do you sleep on a roll away bed?

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We have a crib but you can certainly go without. You can always buy one later if you decide you need it. Your newborn will probably want to sleep on you all the time anyway:) Congratulations.

The only thing I dont like about the pack and play is there really isnt a mattress just a pad...so I dont like the support it gives vs. a crib. I used a downstairs and a crib or bassinet upstairs.

We have both, and my first son slept better in the crib. Maybe it was more comfy for him for the longer sleep through the night? We bought a convertible crib so my son who is now a toddler sleeps in the same bed that was recently converted from a crib to a toddler bed. That helped save us time, money, and made the transition to toddler bed easy. The pack n play was handy to have because we had the crib upstairs and the pack n play downstairs. Also, the pack n play is great for traveling. I'm for having both a crib and a pack n play.

An excellent way to have one bed from birth to adult is buy a 'saftey sleep'. They are designed and made here in New Zealand but you could source one on the internet. They velcro around the bed (from basinette to full bed) and then also velcro around the baby. You know the baby is not going down under the covers but can roll from side to side. Also this prevents the baby from rolling onto its face or tummy. Check it out online...... just google 'Saftey Sleep" from NZ.
Good luck with your decision.
I have used this for four children with great success.

Both my girls have/are sleeping in the pack and play. My oldest is now in a crib and they are just fine!

I suppose it can be done. My son stayed in his crib until he was 3 but he is also small for his age so I was able to keep him in the crib longer. I think it would be hard on a child's back--a crib mattress has a lot more support than a pack and play. Good luck whatever you decide!

I have heard some people flip out over that, but the pad is perfectly fine for sleeping. Babies need a firm, flat mattress, and the pack-n-play pad fits that description. I have known people who did this successfully when they had two really young children and the older of the two was in the crib. We used the bassinet top on the pack-n-play and then the regular bottom in our bedroom until our youngest was about a year old and then we moved him in with his brother. I did not want to disassemble the crib that was in the other bedroom and put it in our room, and I was not ready for them to share. Suggestions:

Make sure you have a handful of sheets that fit very snugly over the pad.
We kept a blanket flopped over the side since it was in our bedroom and the light seemed to bug him. That way we could have a light on and have "grown-up time" while the baby was sleeping without disturbing him.
I found that the sides had a louder sound if anything hit it (drum-like) and tried to minimize bumping at night (again, not the end of the world).

The only drawback is that by about 13 months or so our youngest started climbing out of the pack-n-play. I was surprised he hadn't sooner, but we had him napping in the pack-n-play in our room and sleeping in his brother's room at night because they never napped when they were together. Some children do well going straight to a bed early (my older one was in a twin by 16 months) but my younger one is still content in the crib at almost 2 years old (we'll be getting him a bed soon, but it works for now). That is the only reason you might want a crib, but children get used to what they know--if you go straight from the pack-n-play to a mattress on the floor, you might be fine skipping the crib altogether. Good luck!

(Wow, sorry that was such a long answer!!)

I have 3 kids. None have used cribs. When they wouldn't use the pack and play we moved them to a toddler bed with a side rail down the whole side. Worked well.

I'd get a crib. You can keep a child in a crib until they're 3 or older as long as they're not climbing out. You can borrow one from someone--that's what we did.

I did this with all 3 of my kids. They all turned out healthy and happy. Plus if you have to go out of town you have their sleeping area with you and they don't feel so out of place.

We love our convertible crib!! Our son started in there at 4 months and at 28 months he is still in there. He sleeps happily, and we do too! We are not doing a toddler bed. We are going straight to an adult bed in a year or so. I think we all sleep better with my son in his own room safe in his wooden crib. Most pack and plays don't have great mattresses though. A pack and play is fine but once they start to stand, I am not sure how safe it is. We used our pandp for a little while but my son didn't really like sleeping in it. You can try it and see if its works out for you.

In my experience a pack and play is good until a year or maybe a little past and a crib until 2.5 or 3 years. You can get cribs that convert to a bed later. Also I saw suggested in a Montessori book to have a baby and toddler sleep on a mattress on the floor--but you have to childproof really thoroughly because they are not contained at all.

We are doing that right now and it's working just great (our crib is in storage). And actually my son spent very little time in the crib and then moved straight to a full sized mattress on the floor (no frame). Oh, and I just remembered my brother never purchased a crib for his little ones so they too used a pack n play...worked for them too ;o) Good luck!

My son didn't spend a single night or nap in his crib. Used the bed side co-sleeper, or swing, etc. Then he co-slept with me. A crib mattress might be good to keep on the floor somewhere, but I could definitely see how you could live without a crib!

I think it's a great idea. Probably the main advantage for me to have a crib was that it was higher off the floor which made it easier to lay down and pick up baby when they are too big for the bassinet part of pack and play. Just something to think about, but if it doesn't bother you, then go for it!

I'm like the rest of the moms my 4 month old sleeps in a pak n ply and he does really good n sleeps through the night. And the reason that I do this is when my middle child was in a crib they recalled the crib we had gotten her and since I have seen where most if not all have been recalled and didn't want to take the chance. And plus with the pk n ply he can sleep beside our bed and can hear if his 2 sisters try to mess with him!

My oldest slept in a crib from 8 months old to about 18 months old, then slept in our bed or the pack and play. The second one slept always in the pack and play. We are going to have our third in December, and I am just going to get rid of the crib. Once they outgrew the bassinet insert, we would a couple of blankets down, then covered them with a crib sheet so there was extra padding without blankets for them to get tangled up in. We only did this after they were able to roll over and turn their heads well.

No. We didn't even bother to set it up for child #2, since we hardly used it for our first one. We did use the crib mattress though. We placed it on the carpet and used it for afternoon naps. (He fell asleep MUCH faster if I laid next to him & nursed him to sleep.)

At night time, child #2 slept amazingly well in his swing. (With child #1,we worried if he spent *too* much time sleeping in a swing, but after talking to doctors, other parents, even a sleep expert, no one could find any problem with it, so we let our second child sleep in his swing until he woke on his own, and then I nursed & transferred him.

The problem you may run into with the pack and play is that some are pretty stiff. You can't use pillows or even fluffy blankets or bumpers, so the mattress has to be comfortable enough on it's own, and most pack and plays have a thin layer of cheap foam for the mattress. There's no comparing that to even the firmest of real mattresses.

We bought a crib for our first son, and ended up not using it because he refused to sleep in the crib, so we put him in the pack and play and he slept great! We kept him in there until he was about 2 years old and then moved him to a toddler bed (which I wish we had never bought, but we had a very small apartment at the time). Our crib was recalled a short time later so we got rid of it and haven't bought another one since. If we have another baby, I'm just going to use the pack and play again. Ours has a bassinet feature as well, which works great for a newborn! Good luck!

My kids both HATED the crib, so we went from the cradle to a pack & play and an old sleeper sofa mattress on the floor. The pack & play worked well for times they wanted the small space and for trips to grandparents and other places. The mattress worked well at home because I could lay down with them in their space and sing or read stories. When they woke up, they could reach things to play with and not worry about falling off the bed. When they were walking well we graduated to a bed with a frame for their "big kid" beds. Have fun and good luck!