Stokke has come out with a new crib designed to grow with a child from birth until they’re five years old. And for some moms, it could be the perfect solution for their child’s sleep, and it may solve a problem that I can guarantee you, you may not have thought of.
Preparing for a child is extremely costly and cribs are often one of the most expensive items on a person’s registry. So, parents don’t want to make the wrong choice when it comes to choosing what their child should sleep on, and with so many different options, it can get overwhelming.
So, I’m going to break down the pros and cons to the new Stokke Nighti 3-in-1 Convertible Cot Bed.
Pros
- Design is neutral – you could put this in any nursery and it would fit right in
- Low to the ground – makes putting the baby down easier
- Competitively priced
- Comes with mattress, protector and sheet
Cons
- No storage space under the crib
- A little difficult to put together
- Expensive if you just need the newborn crib
A little bit about me, so you know where I’m coming from with this review. I live in New York City in a two-bedroom apartment that’s all one level. Our apartment isn’t small but it’s also not big so key things I look for in baby products are its storage ability, size, cost and, let’s be honest, the look of it.
The Stokke mini newborn cot is standard size for a bassinet style crib. What I love is that its shape is a rectangle with rounded sides. Why does this matter you ask? Well, a lot of bassinets and newborn cribs are ovals, which means maximizing storage space can get tough because oval doesn’t necessarily fit nicely into a room.
As someone who has a smaller space, the rectangle shape of the Stokke mini newborn cot meant I could easily lean things up against the bottom of it. Now, the con is that since it’s on wheels, there’s no ability to store things underneath it, such as a basket of blankets, which some other bassinets can accommodate.
Which brings me to my next point. The wheels are a great addition. At first, I thought, why would I need wheels. And then I put the crib up against my bed and realized, I needed a way to get out of the bed so I just unlocked the wheels and moved it to the side slightly. It was a smooth glide that I’m confident I could do without waking up my baby.
Also, being in an apartment in New York City, I don’t have room to have multiple cribs for my newborn in each room. (Have I hammered home how much conserving space matters to me, yet?) With the wheels, I can easily bring it from my bedroom to the kitchen and living room without having to somehow carry a baby and pick up an entire crib while I’m running on 2 hours of sleep.
Of course, you’re only going to use the smaller version up to six months, but you can buy an extension kit to turn it into a standard crib and also a toddler bed. Of course, if you’re in a small space this means you’ll have to store a full-size mattress and the extension kit. But, the boxes are relatively small and I was able to just tuck them against the wall behind the Nighti mini. Does it look amazing? Of course not. But that’s New York City for you.
Now, this is the most important thing of this entire review because it’s something I didn’t even consider when shopping for my first crib. And that is, how high the crib is off the ground. When you are a mom, you want to put your baby down as gently as possible in the crib. As a short woman, that is significantly harder to do when the crib is already high off the ground.
The new Stokke crib feet are only a few inches tall. Which means, if you’re on the shorter side or you have a nanny or grandparent who’s shorter, it will be easier to put your child in the crib when they’re sleeping and you’re trying desperately to not wake them up.
Overall, this is a solid option for a crib, and I would recommend it to moms if they need a convertible crib. But, if you’re just looking for a bassinet-style crib for the first few months of your baby’s life, there are cheaper options out there that I think would work just as well.