Ok, I don’t want to write one of those “This is what you need and everything else is crap” posts but I’ve had a friend ask me for some recommendations and my SIL has asked for recommendations for baby showers in the past so I figured that I would save myself some trouble of having to respond to these e-mails and just write a few posts about what we have and what we like or don’t like.
First up the big guns –
Cradle
We are exceedingly fortunate that over 25 years ago my dad decided to put his woodworking skills to work (like what I did there?) and custom built a cradle out of cherry for my niece. Well, not just my niece (who will be turning 25 in just over a month) but all of the grandchildren. Unfortunately for my brothers, it’s big, awkward and too heavy to ship so it got to NJ and never got back to Texas. But as we only lived 3 hours down the road when she was born and then had a moving truck at our disposal, we are its current keepers.
This is actually the earliest picture I could find of it in use for our girl.
Ok, we had the unique situation wherein we didn’t have the option to put her in a crib while we lived in VA since we didn’t have the space but we still would have gone the cradle/bassinet route anyway for the first few months since I certainly wasn’t going to go traipsing into another room to get her every few hours throughout the night nor was I going to ask Will to. Besides, I could just stick my foot out from under the covers and rock her – BONUS!
But then this happened: 
And we knew we were going to have to transition to a proper crib soon. It had to wait until after we moved but thankfully the picture above was taken not too long before we left VA.
Crib
Honestly, I picked almost solely based on appearance.
It’s a DaVinci Charleston 4-in-1 in Coffee. My mom actually got it from Target but I can’t seem to find it on their site. It’s one of these “converts to a toddler bed and then to a full size bed” jobs but we have no plans to do such things with it because (a) I think toddler beds are ridiculous and (b) I think it’s all just a racket to get you to buy more cribs.
It was actually really easy to put together. It took about an hour the first time but then I took it apart and put it back together (most of the way) by myself when it needed to get moved into her room (that’s our room above).
Now I can’t take all the credit for researching the crib mattress. We have friends whose daughter is a mere 3 months older than Miss Pea and they’d seemingly done their research on all the best earth- and baby-friendly options so with minimal further research, we went with their choice – The Organic Grace Organic Cotton/Wool Interspring crib mattress. We’ve been pleased with it.
Car Seat
Based on recommendations from friends and playing with the mechanism in the store, we went with the Chicco KeyFit 30.
Her first experience with it didn’t go so well.
It’s rated to 30lbs and, unfortunately for us with our long baby, 30 inches. We’re going to hit the 30 inches a long time before we hit 30lbs and they don’t exactly advertize that extra limitation on the seat. But really I think that’s our only “problem” with it. We’ve found it easy to install, use, clean, adjust the straps as she’s grown, and she seems pretty comfortable in it. Oh – I guess the only other “problem” is that it doesn’t fit in the seat part of all shopping carts but I’ve been told that it’s because you really aren’t supposed to do that with the infant seats anyway since it makes the carts top heavy.
Stroller
We went with the City Mini Single by Baby Jogger.
In “newborn carry the car seat” mode.
We got green because it went with the car seat but I think I might have gone with the red (and the red version of the car seat) if I’d thought about it longer. It is not a jogging stroller despite the name and its appearance. Consumer Reports classifies it as a traditional stroller.
Reasons we love it:
- it’s lightweight which ended up being key after I ended up with a c-section.
- It steers so well even with one hand
- The handle bar is on the tall side. Will is comfortable walking but not running with it and he’s 6’1”.
- It does work as a jogger if you want. I’ve tried it once. Once only because I can’t run in CO yet as it turns out.
- It off-roads pretty well but is also nice and smooth in the mall.
- It has a one foot brake.
- It folds up SO quickly and easily.
- With the car seat adapter, it easily transitions through the ages.
- It’s actually a mid-range stroller pricewise though I think it looks much more expensive.
In “I can sit by myself like a big girl” mode. I included both pictures because I want to point out that they were taken exactly 2 days apart in October.
A few drawbacks:
- The cargo basket is small and a touch awkward.
- All the extras are exactly that extras. The tray for snacks and a drink for kids and the adults. The car seat adapter.
- The car seat adapter (at least for the Chicco since we’re not familiar with anything else) is so confusing at first. And everyone finds it to be so – we got asked about it twice in one day when we travelled back to DC.
Highchair
Hmmm…. well, I found ours on craigslist in November after she’d been on solid foods for about a month. We’d been using a Bumbo set on the table before then.
Again, I went for style. I wanted something classy looking since I was going to have to look at it all the time and no one of those “fold it up and put it away” jobs wasn’t going to cut it because we don’t have any place to put something like that and I’m lazy. Then I went for price since it was craigslist.
The seat pad comes off and is washable – and gets washed about once a month or so. There’s a 3 point harness. The plastic tray cover comes off to wash easily. It looks good and does what it should for $48.
Unfortunately, the plastic tray cover is a little damaged and Graco is all sold out of replacement parts. And it’s discontinued. It’s a little beat up so I may get ambitious and refinish it but eh, it works.
Pack and Play aka Play Pen
We didn’t finally get a pack and play until right before we left VA to head west. We just got a very basic Graco model without the bassinet or changer or any of that extra stuff. But Liz is responsible for alerting me that a green and brown with elephants model existed. We still don’t use it all that often, pretty much only when we work outside in the yard or when we’re working on a project with lots of small parts.
She slept in a pack and play when we went East for Christmas but I don’t think she found it terribly comfortable. She doesn’t mind it but I don’t think she really likes it. It seems pretty easy to set up. I have no actual experience doing it since Will usually does it. I suspect that once she starts crawling, she might be spending some more time in it.
Convertible Car Seat
After polling friends, doing fair amount of internet searching and checking them out in the store; we’re about to pull the trigger and order a Britax Boulevard 70.
Modeling the Marathon 70 in the store.
It’s more expensive than our other contender (the Evenflo Triumph 65) but in the end, the fact that it is more similar to our Chicco made the decision for us. Amongst a bunch of other factors, of course.
Diapers
Our other big upfront expensive has been cloth diapers. I will eventually go into our decision to cloth diaper at length but for now… We’re using BumGenius Organic All-in-Ones.
Our first venture out with them.
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