Seeking Advice on Cribs

I wish I had a gotten a low one like my friend. Basically, most are built so that the railings are up to your mid-chest, which means you are uncomfortably reaching over and down, with the top bar hitting you on your tender underarm. But the lower ones only come up to like your waist, so you reach down without hitting any part of your body. They are still safe, since the mattress will just be lower to make sure the kid can't jump out, but it's more comfortable for you. As you shop, test it and reach down in, lower any movable rails and see how well it works for you. Congrats!

HI M.,

I completely agree on buying a low one.
I am giving you the link to the one we bought

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5064488

It is very inexpensive, my daughters cost more, I like it less.
This one I am giving you a link for was shipped to my nearest walmart so I didn't have to pay delivery - which was about an additional 100 bucks!

It turns into a toddler bed if we choose to, I am sure we will since it will have headboard and footboard.
I like the darker wood, it is low, it looks very nice in his bedroom.... I really recommend it, good quality and EXCELLENT price!

Childcraft is a great brand as far as being quality made. I bought a childcraft crib used and it is still in just about perfect condition. They are not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for!

I am not a fan of the convertible cribs. The conevertibles that I looked at did not have a rail that lowered (you will want the rail to lower since your baby will just be a lump laying the the crib for awhile and you have to reach in and pick the baby up and hold its head...) We got one at Walmart for around $100 and its doing great. What is more important is to get a good mattress that helps prevent SIDS. I think the mattress we got was around $160 and they say never use a used mattress for a baby (I plan to use the one we have though for our second since we have keep a protector on it and never had a big mess on it.)

My advice: get one WITHOUT all the bells and whistles. We bought a used (well, pre-owned, but unused - the family ended up co-sleeping so it was a laundry basket for 2 years) Simmons crib. We got it for $100 off Craigslist and couldn't be happier. It is not convertible. It doesn't have 10 different height settings. It's high quality wood. Works great. Really all you need are the highest and lowest mattress settings - you won't use anything in between anyway. We just moved my 20-month old son to his Big Boy Bed and that's going well too.

I'm in the same boat and interested. I know my sister did a lot of research on safety reports and you can get safe cribs, with excellent ratings for low prices such as Target. That's what she did, but I really have not searched that much yet. Would be interested to see your responses... also on strollers.

A great book to buy would be 'Baby Bargains' - the authors are all about penny pinching, but still using safe and high-quality products. They have an entire section devoted to cribs, complete with information about cribs that are junk, manufacturers who take forever to ship cribs, cribs that have had a lot of problems or complaints, and their top picks.

I received the book as a gift and used it to select so many items for my first child. I found it to be exceptionally helpful since I had no idea what I was doing at the time. I'll send you a PM with more detailed information from the book (after I put my 11 month old to bed lol).