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At not-quite three-months, baby Brody was already busting out of his bassinet, says Brantford, Ont., mom Stephanie Dailey. ?He was bumping into the sides and waking himself up,? she says.
Shirley Park, a mom of two in Winnipeg, had the same experience at that age with her daughters, Alexandria, now four, and Seraphina, two. ?Both of my girls are really tall, so by about three months they were growing out of the bassinet and had to be transitioned to the crib,? she says.
Parents of bigger-than-average babies tend to ponder the move to a crib first, says Michelle Ponti, a paediatrician in London, Ont. ?But even when baby gets too big for his bassinet, it?s best to keep him close to you, in a safety-approved crib,? she says. The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends little ones sleep in the same room as their parents until six months to promote nighttime breastfeeding and reduce the risk of SIDS by having mom and dad close by during the night, so you?re more easily alerted to any problems with your baby. Not every master bedroom is spacious enough to easily accommodate a crib, though, which can complicate things. ?Sometimes parents put a mattress on the floor in the nursery for themselves as a transitional step, or they can make the crib fit in their room by rearranging or removing some of the furniture,? says Ponti. Park says they lucked out: ?All I had to do was move my nightstand and the crib fit between my side of the bed and the wall.? This allowed each of...