Snafus of the sisterhood- October 4, 2010
I’ve given up my beautiful bassinet dreams for parental practicality. In the first trimester the only thing pregnancy-wise we had only spent money on was Sea Bands, so I wanted my baby to slumber in this beauty next to our bed…
www.landofnod.com
Yeah, now that we’re getting down to it, at $399.99, that’s not gonna happen. Not only is it out of stock until the holidays, it’s $399.99. Our master bedroom is on the first floor, so we’d need my cousin’s old changing table too. Suddenly it’s getting cramped.
So, we went ahead and spent the more sensible $169.99 on the Graco Pack ‘N Play with built in changing table this weekend. Less space, less money. We were feeling good about this decision until it came time to put it together.
It looks innocent enough right? I mean, you put a baby in it. DO NOT BE FOOLED NEW PARENTS! This was a gigantic pain. Fortunately, my sweet sister was in town and patient enough to help.
This was the state of our house after a bank-braking trip to Buy Buy Baby to finish out key things on the registry. (Please excuse the sisterhood-of-the-comfy-pajamas.)
I read the one generic set of Graco instructions for all 20 million models of Pack ‘N Plays they sell as Julie contemplated which end of the playpen the changing table went on since there was no picture in the instructions.
Greyson supervised. (Apparently he is vying for a spot in the pajama sisterhood.) He did help out when we lacked the upper body strength to fit metal rods into the slots provided. Turns out, he lacked this strength too. They went in different slots, that again, were not clear in the piss-poor instructions.
At this point, we’re at least a half-hour into the assembly process. I kept thinking, “Surely three adults with college degrees can put this thing together.” Another half-hour later, it turns out, we could……
We just put it together in another room, AND IT DIDN’T FIT THROUGH THE DOOR!
Look at Julie’s face! There was NO WAY I was taking that thing apart! (I was floored at the fact that this is a product designed to quickly assemble and disassemble on-the-go). We were gonna drop the 400 bucks for the bassinet before we took it apart. Luckily we combined our smarts and figured out we could bring it in through the outside door.
Success! A lesser sisterhood would’ve packed it in on the Pack ‘N Play.
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Our Pack n Play was pretty straightforward, but we got the Evenflo type. We've developed a brand loyalty to Evenflo. My husband says they engineer things better, and he's an engineer. Re: the bassinet. Don't be disappointed if the baby won't sleep in it. I don't yet know of a newborn who's used his/her bassinet. Babies sleep in swings (sometimes) and in their mommies and daddies arms. It took four weeks of sleepless nights for me to give in because "back is best", but cosleeping and night-nursing really worked well for me once I gave it and started doing it. Get The Baby Book by Dr. William Sears. He teaches a lot about cosleeping and nursing and just gives good parenting advice. It was the best "Baby Manual" that I found.
You'll get good use out of the Pack n Play, though. We use the hell out of the changing table and still use it. And Will sleeps in it when we go out of town. But you never know, your baby might sleep in her Pack n Play from birth on. You're getting close! Sleep all you can (though I know it can be hard with heartburn and stuff)
Both my babies slept (quite well!) in a cradle in our room for the first few weeks. We moved our first son to his crib in the nursery at 2 weeks and our second son after 4-5 weeks.
They also slept pretty well in the pack-n-play. and when they outgrow it for sleeping- it makes a great toy bin. we just had to remind travis not to throw toys in it now that another baby is sleeping in it
We had something similar for our 3rd child and from Graco too. those things are horrible to put together. But don't regret your choice. I had a pretty bassinet for my older girls and it just wasn't practical and in the end the girls grew up too fast for it and I gave it away. Damian's 2 now and we're still using the pack n play for him and his baby sister.
And those pack-n-play's are so darn heavy too. I just put one together for my brother about 2 months ago and was surprised about how complicated the thing was. It was almost as bad as my gas grill and those instructions were translated from Chinese to Russian to Chinglish. (By the way, you don't know me Amy, but Greyson and I used to work together at Lenovo). Congrats on being a soon to be new mom!