It may sound crazy, but one of my biggest regrets I made when deciding what to buy for my newborn was purchasing a crib. I actually didn’t intend to purchase a crib at all at first. My idea was that I would just purchase a pack n play and set it up next to my bed to save money on baby furniture. When I told my family this, they insisted on purchasing me a crib as a baby shower gift. I couldn’t turn down a gift from my family so I graciously accepted their gift and helped my husband build it and set it up next to our bed.
A crib seemed like such an essential item to have for a baby that I never considered that it might end up in my storage locker a few months after my son was born. I researched hundreds of cribs and read horror stories about how the wrong crib mattress could spontaneously combust or suffocate my baby with trapped gasses. Ok those are exaggerations, but my anxiety was only enhanced through research on safe sleep studies. Some of the things you read online about cribs will keep you up at night.
I obsessed over purchasing bedding and spent a lot of money on not one, but TWO different mobiles to attach to my baby’s crib. My baby was ultimately unimpressed by my fancy projector style mobile that played several different sounds to soothe him to sleep. It even had a remote to turn it on from my bed without having to get up. All my efforts to create a desirable sleeping environment for my baby were useless in the end.
I felt like I was handling a little time bomb every time I tried to lull my son to sleep and place him in his crib, he would immediately wake up. He would only sleep well if he was on someone’s chest or being cradled in a baby carrier. In the rare chance that I finally got him to lay in his crib, I would wake up in the middle of the night worrying whether he was breathing, if I had fallen asleep with him in the bed with me, if he was too cold or hot, if he was getting indigestion as a result of sleeping horizontally.
Baby Drew sleeping on his Nana’s chest (my mother-in-law)
My son slept next to my bed in his crib for maybe a month before I found a better sleep solution. After my c-section, I found myself on the couch so as to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of walking upstairs with stitches. It was during a visit to my in-laws that my mother-in-law gave us a giftcard and told us to get something for baby. I had wanted a rock n play sleeper before my son arrived but had little luck finding one at the consignment store. I did my research and found one within our giftcard price range on Amazon. It was a Newborn Rock n Play Sleeper that had a detachable teething toy and vibration feature that we always forgot to turn off and burned out the batteries.
I don’t think I would have survived without my Newborn Rock n Play Sleeper those first few months. As you can see, we used it all the time until he started to sit up on his own. I think he liked his Rock n Play Sleeper because it kept him enclosed and gave him a sense of security that he got when we held him close. I tried swaddling to create the same effect but he would always break free and I worried I was swaddling too tight. I just propped his Rock N Play Sleeper next to my bed and it kept him at an slight upright position to help with digestion.
As a sleep deprived mother, it was nice to have something right next to my bed that I could rock him to sleep in without having to transfer him to his crib and risk waking him up again. I felt at ease having him in arms reach and always recommend Rock N Play sleepers to my pregnant friends as a must have.
After about three months, we transitioned from co-sleeping into bed-sharing. I guess the Rock N Play was a gateway to bed-sharing but that’s a whole other story I will explain later 😉
Drew with sleeping on the bed next to me with the crib in the background.
Unexpectedly Awesome 