Wife is in love with Young America Crib$. HELP!!!!!

[MamaSnoo]

We have a full room of YA for DD. It is the Ma Marie line. Very pretty. I love it.

However, it was not cheap, and I would not do it exactly this way again.....here is why:

1. She never slept in her crib (PNP or coslept all the way). It was not a big loss, because ours was convertible and it is now a full-size bed.

2. However, there are way more choices in full-size beds, so if I had waited, I could have had more selection for the bed instead of feeling like I have to use the converted crib because we paid so much.

3. We are now considering DC2, and we could have them share a room one day in our current home. But, it would need to be 2 twin beds, and our crib does not convert to a twin bed. So, we would need 2 new twin beds if we did that.

4. We were lucky DD did not destroy the bed. As PPs have mentioned, some babies are really hard on their cribs. The only reason DD was not, it that she was not in it. I would not want to take that chance again.

Personally, if I had it to do over, I might look at really good quality dressers in a line I liked, cheap out on the crib, and then add a pretty bed to match the dressers when she was a little older.

That said, I am happy with my YA stuff (even though it is from the supposedly low quality MIC era)....we have not had any problems with chipping or other quality issues.

[veronica]

I agree with this 100%. If we didn't have an excellent family hand me down crib that met 2006 crib standards we would've most likely bought a Stanley or Pali quality crib that converted to a full size bed. We knew that we would never co sleep (I am a light sleeper and DH moves around a lot so it wasn't something we were comfortable with) so we knew once the babies were sleeping through the night they'd be in their rooms in their cribs. For both girls that was two months.

I will say however that if my girls were at my parents house more and I wanted to get a crib for their house I most likely wouldn't have had a problem getting an Ikea Gulliver crib to keep there or if in our case we knew we weren't having another child and weren't going to buying another full size mattress (had we done the conversion crib initially) I wouldn't have had a problem buying something like the Ikea crib for full time use.

I actually really regret not buying a Stanley twin bed for our older daughter because the twin bed we have for her now (cheaper brand from a baby store is not all that great and the $250 we paid for the thing really shows) is not of really great quality and we are looking at buying two Stanley twin beds for our daughters at the same time that we buy DD2 her bed in a couple of years. I would rather buy a few and less quality items that fill a nursery with lots of cheaper stuff.

Phew-I was starting to feel like an outcast. I will say add though, after reading everyone's experiences that I guess we lucked out. DD was in her crib until 4 years, when we took the front rail off and turned it into her toddler bed. At age 5, we just got her full sized. She has never once slept with us nor eaten her crib or puked/pooed on it!

DS-is firmly following her footsteps. We need his crib for one of the twins and he is freaking out over it. We have a few month yet but he hasn't even wanted to turn it into a toddler bed! He's going on 4, still in a sleep sack (with foot openings) and in a crib. I feel lucky to have made it this far with both kids.

This time, while looking for less expensive options, what stopped me was not quality, but quantity. I would have loved to spend less but when DH and I looked at dressers and accessory pieces for less money, the size of the drawers was tiny. Our dressers now, have drawers that are close to 18 inches deep and 6 inches tall. The dressers for other lines are 12 inches deep and 4 inches tall, and we felt the price difference didn't quite make up for such a difference.

[AnnieW625]

That said, I am happy with my YA stuff (even though it is from the supposedly low quality MIC era)....we have not had any problems with chipping or other quality issues.

I would check again, I believe that Stanley has always been MIUSA.

[MSWR0319]

We have a Bonavita convertible and bought the toddler rail, convertible rails, dresser and night stand for about $800. I LOVE it! DS is 2.5 and the only damage to it is on the side rails where he apparently dug his teeth in. I had a fabric cover on the front rail so he wouldn't ruin it and everything else on it looks brand new too. Great quality! I personally like the idea of getting furniture now that will last Untill they leave for school unless you can't afford it or don't have the room. I say if you can afford it, go for it! If not, I'm sure there's soothing with a smililar look, but lower cost. I found a lot of the cribs we were looking at were similar in style with slight differences between the brands!

[Kindra178]

I would check again, I believe that Stanley has always been MIUSA.

They moved manufacturing beds/cribs to China in 2007 and continued with that until 2009. Now they advertise how everything is made in USA. Since that is something important to me, I plan to use them in the future.

By the way, when I spent $1400 on two cribs 30 something weeks pregnant with twins, I didn't know that the cribs were made there. I found out later and confirmed it with YA.

[Kira's Mommy]

Haven't read all the responses but normally I wouldn't go with an expensive crib.

The crib/changing table stage is too short to invest thousands of dollars in it. Many expensive cribs can be converted into a toddler bed and a double bed, but the converted versions somehow don't look as gorgeous as the cribs.

If, however, your wife loves the converted double bed look as much as she loves the crib look, and if it makes her happy, and if you can afford an expensive crib in addition to a nice stroller, I would probably splurge. Life's too short.

[MontrealMum]

We got Morgeau Lepine, Bellini and our Bellini will be arriving tomorrow for the twins. The quality is amazing. the furniture will last until they move out.

Slightly OT, but where on earth did you find a Morigeau Lepine crib? They went bankrupt several years ago. I know because that's what we have, and they were located less than 20 min. away from us.

OP, I would not spend an arm and a leg on a crib. We spent a lot on ours and not only did the dresser turn out to be carp (we ended up repairing it ourselves after we sent the 1st one back), but we are now unable to buy any of the matching older child furniture as we'd planned because the company has since gone under. And as Scriptkitten says, if you have a little beaver, they're going to ruin the sides no matter what price you paid for it. And no, those protective crib rail thingys don't work - but they do fly a fair distance across the room when thrown by a curious toddler. I also see no reason or need for something that converts into a double. My DH and are still sleeping in a double, our DS will go into a twin. Doubles take up too much room and there's really no need for a teenty tiny kid to be in one.

I wish we had gone with something like the Ikea Gulliver...and I heartily support the idea of using the excess budget on strollers...or carseats

[katydid1971]

The thing I keep thinking about with your link is it is very girly. Is this your first child? Do you plan on having others? Do you want to reuse the crib for DC #2? If you have a boy you may not want to use that crib again. Yes, you might be using it for DD's bed but you might want to go another direction with her room later and want to reuse the crib for DC #2. Just something else to think about.

[ahisma]

We went nuts decorating the nursery and making sure that everything was *just right*.

When DS was 9 months old, DH looked at me and said, "Why did we need a nursery?"

Literally, the baby was only in the nursery for diaper changes. The rest of the time was spent in our room, or downstairs.

I don't regret the nursery, but we probably could have worried a bit less about it

[echoesofspring]

My son has chewed the paint around all edges of his crib. I don't know if "baked on" paint prevents this or if it just tastes better?

Now that he's a toddler he enjoys driving his wooden Thomas trains (which he must sleep with) along the top rails. This has served to remove much of the paint that he hadn't already ingested.

Thought I would throw this idea out there, as I've not seen it mentioned - when we were nursery shopping, my husband and I had an interesting conversation about the whole "buy now, send them off to college in it" marketing that all the baby furniture manufacturers seem to use. We both have very fond memories of childhood milestones when our parents said "Ok, you're a big kid now, and you get to get big kid furniture". For me it was a used adult furn. set at about age 12/13(I'm sure I had something else between then and being a toddler), for him it was earlier (6 or 7), but the same outcome, a rite of passage that signaled we were old enough to take care of real furniture, not draw on it with sharpie markers, etc. We decided that that ritual was important to us and something we want to pass on to our children. So we bought a crib we really liked (midrange price), a used changing table/dresser we can live with, and will just sort of wait and see about future.

This doesn't really have much to do with the particular crib in question, and it's price, but mostly is just a devils advocate argument to the idea of 'investing' in nursery furniture with the idea that it will get the same lifetime of use as other household furniture.

Does anyone know how I can back her up a little bit and help her see that we can find something just as nice that doesn't cost $1000, literally?

Where should I look? What do I do? I need so much help

I think the key here is to just look at lots and lots of furniture. Online, in stores, etc. I know if I had bought what I liked when I first started looking I'd be disappointed now, because my idea of what I wanted/liked really changed in the course of shopping and comparing.