Unless you are planning on having your baby to sleep in bed with you, which some midwives recommend but I personally found made getting a good night’s sleep impossible, the baby bed will be one of your priority purchases.

Many parents start off with a crib or Moses basket for the first few months.  This has several advantages as it makes the baby feel snug and secure, takes up less space in the parents’ bedroom, can be easily moved from room to room during the day, and in some cases can be rocked to get the baby to bed.  However, some parents do report having a tough time getting their child moved into a cot once they get near to the sitting stage.

With my son we decided to put him straight into a cot, which was placed at the end of our bed for the first three months, and then moved into his nursery after that.  This strategy seemed to work pretty well for him as he didn’t seem to like being confined or swaddled, and the cot gave him plenty of space to spread out.  However, there are still a number of factors to consider when you are choosing a cot.

I would recommend a cot with variable base levels if you are putting a new born in there to save wear and tear on your back while your baby is small enough to use the higher levels.  Also your new born will look very tiny and far away at the bottom of a big cot; being able to raise the base will make them seem closer to you.  Having a cot with a drop side will also help to reduce strain on your back, and a mechanism that allows the side to be dropped with one hand is very useful, although that may make it easier for your child to escape the cot once they reach toddlerhood.

The size of the cot is another consideration.  We chose to have a smaller cot, 120 x 60cm I think, because we wanted to be able to move it easily from room to room and a larger one wouldn’t fit through our doorways. However, our son is now fairly hefty for a 17 month old and we’re starting to wish we’d got a bigger cot as he seems a bit restricted in there. Many of the bigger cots also convert into child beds when your baby outgrows them, but these can be very expensive.

Check out the great range of nursery furniture and cot beds avaialble to order online at My Little Monsters.

Buying or inheriting a second hand cot can really cut down the expense of setting up your nursery. This is the approach we are taking with baby number two as we will only need two cots for a few months.  If you do use a second hand cot just be sure that the bars are not far enough apart for your baby’s head to become trapped, that any repainting is done with a baby friendly lead free paint, and that you buy a new mattress for the bed.

If you have any advice on choosing a baby bed I’d love to hear from you.  In the next post I’ll be looking at whether you really need a changing table and what sort to buy.