Our Crib!

So my in-laws bought us a crib and mattress for our baby shower. The plan was to wait until we got settled in Fairbanks, then buy the crib and have it shipped to the store up here, which Wal-Mart supposedly does for free. Except that they're mean, and don't offer that service to Alaska, which we only found out once we got up here. Shipping the crib that my family had picked would cost $180.

So my family offered to just send the money, and we would pick something up locally. Wal-Mart had three models in stock, all made of particle board. I was a little nervous that once Nanook got bigger and started pulling herself up, she would shake the rails (as babies do) and shake the screws right out of that cheap particle board.

By chance Mirus and I noticed a baby store that was small, and was only open a few hours per day. When I stopped in, they had the most BEAUTIFUL cribs! And only one was under $450 dollars (including shipping). It seemed a little silly to spend nearly twice the amount of money on a crib as we had spent furnishing our entire apartment in Denver.

Since we'd been up here I have been checking Craigslist everyday, just looking at all the baby stuff, and hadn't seen any furniture for any sort of reasonable price. Then yesterday, I saw this! It's perfect! It's the right color to match the silly little shelves we'd gotten in Denver for the baby's room/space, it's a style I like, and it converts to a toddler bed, day bed, then twin bed. The changer/dresser even turns into a night stand when you don't need the changer anymore.



This is our beautiful crib. Sorry it's backlit, once we move to our new place I'll take better pictures with all the sheets and blankets and pretty things. We weren't going to keep the mattress, but then we realized that all baby mattresses are plastic. We could just wipe it down with a good disinfectant or cleanser and it would be as a good as new.


The changer has a little pad that came with it, but it's pretty flimsy. I'll just get some foam at the craft store and make a slipcover to go over it. I'm pretty sure I can stitch a plastic cover to go right over the foam and have something with a little more substance that's still easy to wipe down.


I could put shelves in here, but I think I'll use the space for a hamper instead. There's gonna be a lot of dirty diapers to go into the wash!

There's even a full drawer that goes under the crib. I haven't put it together yet, but I think it'll be a nice place to store all the beautiful blankets Nanook has accumulated. The only downside is that we can't sidecar the crib like we had hoped. Well, we could, but we couldn't use the drawer and the changer as well. I suppose we could sidecar it without using those things for a while, and when she's sleeping through the night we could set it up on against the wall opposite our bed.

We hadn't really come up with a plan for co-sleeping. We know we want to for a while, but we aren't interested in co-sleeping for years, but we want to make sure Nanook gets what she needs as well. We had planned on sort of just playing it by ear. I'm not sure that only co-sleeping until she sleeps through the night would be long enough. Even if she's still in the room, she's not with us. But this crib is too beautiful to go unused for long!

It feels so, so good to have the crib and changer. Like this is really happening!