Lyla’s crib… sleep baby sleep (please)

“People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one” – Leo J. Burke

I’ve found that every since Lyla was a few weeks old, the one question everyone would ask is “is she sleeping through the night?” This may seem like an odd question, but to any parent who has been there, there is nothing more incredible than that first night your baby sleeps until the sun rises.

Baby sleep is a very important issue to me. I am by no means an expert, but I guess you could say I have a lot of experience.

One thing that was important for me was to get Lyla and Benjamin to sleep well in their cribs. I wanted to make their cribs into a perfect combination of calming and entertaining, their special little place in this world.

Here is a tour of Lyla’s crib.

1. The Crib – Baby’s Dream safety gate Kathryn crib in cherry

I LOVE the Baby’s Dream safety gate cribs. They have a unique design where the front of the crib folds down. It is extremely safe and carefully designed and a great alternative to the traditional drop gate crib. This gate allows you to bend over into the crib and get very close to your baby. It also allows you to slowly and carefully place a sleeping baby into the crib without waking her up.

When you move the mattress to the lower setting, the safety gate allows you to safely keep your young toddler in their cribs for longer. We got the Infinity crib for Benjamin and he is still in his crib now at 23 months old (and he is very tall). There is no way he could crawl out or hurt himself.

When you purchase one of these cribs, it comes with everything you need to turn it into a toddler bed, and later into a beautiful full sized bed. I’m not sure I will use the full-sized bed any time soon, but it is such a cool feature. I was worried that these cribs were a little expensive (about $500 for the crib, conversion kit, mattress, and delivery and set up), but even the cheaper cribs at BabiesRus added up to a lot of money when you included the price for the mattress and the additional price for the toddler conversion kit. Plus you either had to pay for shipping or figure out a way to take it home and assemble it yourself.

These cribs are also high quality and extremely sturdy. I have even climbed into them on multiple occasions. Benjamin is a big kid and he is always jumping all around his crib and it is still in excellent condition. It doesn’t sag or lean to one side as many other cribs usually do.

Benjamin’s crib (before he was born) with the gate down

B’s crib with the gate up

2. The Bedding – Pretty in Pink reversible crib bedding by Too Good Jenny

Baby bedding is one of the most fun things to pick out. There are so many choices and it sets the tone for the entire nursery. However, it can also be very expensive. I found this bedding online and I love it. I ordered it through jcpenny.com with a coupon code and chose to pick it up in stores. I think the total cost I paid was $59.00. Most bedding sets at BabiesRus are about $200.00.

Another thing I love about this bedding is that it is cute and girly but at the same time it is high contrast. Babies can’t see much for the first few weeks and especially during the first six months they are drawn to high contrast images. Also red is the only color they can really see well when they are first born. Often parents get bedding and gear in adorable soft pinks and yellows (which is so cute maybe it’s worth it) but they don’t think about having something really interesting for their baby to look at. I know that I didn’t really consider it when I picked out Benjamin’s crib bedding.

3. Sleep Sheep – Cloud B

My mom got Lyla this adorable little travel-sized sleep sheep. Cloud B also makes a gentle giraffe Cloud B Gentle Giraffe Sound Machine with Four Soothing Sounds, a turtle night light Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light, Turtle, and more. This is great because it plays soothing white noise sounds like waves on the ocean. Lyla found these noises to be very soothing and it really seemed to help her fall asleep, especially when we were away from home.

4. Fisher-Price Luv U Zoo Crib-to-Floor Activity Piano

We just got this crib toy for Lyla last week and she loves it. I also think it is very cute. It ties very easily onto the side of her crib and it gives her something to play with when she first wakes up in the morning (giving me an extra 30 minutes of sleep). There are four different activities on the top half plus a piano that plays music on the bottom half. The colored rectangles behind each of the animals also light up with the music.

5. Stuffed Animals – Jellycat Zebra

Grant’s mother introduced us to these Jellycat stuffed animals when she got a couple for Benjamin for his first Christmas. Somehow this adorable Zebra has found its way into Lyla’s crib. When Benjamin was about Lyla’s age he had already fallen in love with his favorite stuffed animal Oo-Oo Ty Pluffies Dangles Monkey. However Lyla has not yet made her choice. She also has shown a lot of interest in the pluffy dog Ty Barkers – Dog. We will just have to wait and see.

(Of course be careful to not leave stuffed animals within a sleeping baby’s reach until they are a year old to prevent SIDS)

*These are honest reviews of some of my favorite things. I was not given any of these products to review or compensated for my reviews.