 |
| Our Bassinet |
I have had many people inquire about how we set up our bassinet. Here is the answer.
Brinley loved sleeping in the bassinet. She loved it so much, I took it off of its stand and put it in her crib so she could sleep in the bassinet. She slept in it until she was 5 months old. At that point, I had her take one nap a day in the crib, then two naps a day, then three naps a day, and finally added night. By about 5.5 months, she was in just the crib.
A great thing about a bassinet is that you can have it on an incline and keep baby in place much easier. I wish I would have thought of this when Kaitlyn was a baby. She had to sleep on an incline because of reflux and slid down the incline. We had the bassinet, set up exactly like this, in our room and she took at least one nap a day in it until she was 7 months old and finally just too big for it anymore. Something else people have done is put their SnuggleU with baby in the crib and they report it keeps baby in place. We had a SnuggleU at the time, but I never thought of that, either. I kept it in the bassinet at all times.
There is nothing fancy about our bassinet. It is a Kolcraft, but we have had it for over 7 years. It is old. Amazon has a lot fancier Bassinets
When we got home from the hospital with Kaitlyn, my husband took some foam we had from Joanne’s. This foam is quite expensive. We had some leftover from when we added it to our piano bench and covered it. If you do end up buying some foam from Joannes, be sure to use a coupon. I think you might be able to get smaller cuts of it, too, but I can’t remember for sure.Also, Amazon has some less expensive options: Foam on Amazon
He traced the mattress on the foam pad and cut it out. He just used a kitchen knife–a cheap one. You can see the cutting is pretty rough. We have since found that automatic knives (like the kind people use to carve turkeys) make it much smoother and is easier.
He then used a marker to draw an angle on the foam and then cut it so it was at an angle.The angle recommended for reflux babies is 30 degrees.
We put that foam pad in the bassinet, then put the mattress on top that the bassinet came with. We then use a SnuggleU at the bottom. Brinley slept with the SnuggleU until she left the bassinet. She started in the crib with it, then I took it out.
If you have a bassinet already or some foam (or access to inexpensive foam), this way is probably the best. If you are buying a bassinet, I would probably buy one.
