Milestone: putting the side sleeper away!

Today we reached a big milestone. Little one is now far too wiggly to continue using the side sleeper. She’s starting to crawl and pulling up on everything in a bid to stand up. It was a big moment for mummy me to undo those buckles and admit that one brief era was over.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having little one so close to me every night: being able to just peak across and see her peaceful sleeping face and then drift back off to sleep has been amazing.

Breastfeeding through the night has been a doddle (apart from having to do it every 1-2 hours!). I just rolled her next to me and off she went. Although with all the sleepy hormones raging I have to admit to falling asleep with her in that safe little cuddle curl and sometimes waking up not knowing if we were coming or going?!

So this milestone got me thinking about the side sleeper that we had – what were the good and bad bits…

We had the Jane side crib (Amazon) that came as part of an amazing travel system bundle from Baby 2000. One of the plus sides of it being in a bundle is that I didn’t agonise over the decision of which one to get. But now that we’ve lived with it I thought I would share the pros and cons of this model (don’t forget all the good things I mentioned above that apply to any side sleeper) …

Good things

• Easy to attached to a wooden framed bed with a double clip system: the straps can stay in place even if you need to move the sleeper away for cleaning (ha ha) or getting to things.

• Tilt system to help with reflux: this is literally the best thing about it! My poor little one had so much trouble. Having the tilt integrated into the system meant that we didn’t have to resort to using encyclopaedias or wedges to make her more comfortable.

Not so good or just perplexing…

• With the side down the zip and the ends where the top bar clips in are exposed. These are kind of rough and I worried about them once little one started to move around more. I ended up covering these with towels.
• The little wheels really hurt when you stand on them. They can be turned in and locked but in a narrow cramped space like ours it can be a trip hazard.
• The duvet and pillow are not recommended by UK standards according to the heath visitors and lullaby trust so we didn’t use them.
• For some reason the hard base was inside the mattress cover when we unboxed. This made it impossible to level off and my newborn rolled right into the side. Not ideal for your first night home and we ended up changing for a swing crib that we intended to use downstairs. Once we figured it out and took the board out of the case and put it in separately it worked a treat.
• It’s very big for a newborn. After figuring out the tilt problem we tried again (5 days later) but little one seemed frightened and lost in it so we went back to the swing crib until she was about 2 months old and a bit bigger.

• It is foldable… but it’s not really travel-able unless you have a van! It folds down to the size of the top ring but it’s about 20cm wide still as the legs just fold in. There isn’t a travel bag so it would have to go back in it’s box. I think there isn’t a bag because they know it isn’t really going to be used in this way. I guess if you we using it at a relatives house then it could be folded for storage in between visits.
• We found the mattress to be very hard. But I think this is a safety thing. Little one did sleep better on our bed but the bets are off as to whether that was safe enough.
• I couldn’t get the supplied sheet on and off but then my hands were broken and useless. We used an old sheet just cut into four and tucked in tightly.

On the whole… a good quality, robust piece of baby furniture. Love the concept… might shop around for better features now I know better! But having said that… it’s stored for future (not necessarily me!!) as it wasn’t a cheap option.