Tuesday's Tips

Don't buy a convertible crib unless you're sure you can get the conversion rails.

I'm frustrated.

Olive has the bed pictured here. It's very pretty and is supposed to be a 4-in-1 bed (crib, toddler bed, day bed, and full-sized bed). I had these grand illusions of her having this bed for the rest of her life because it's so beautiful and the bonus is - hey, all you have to do is get the conversion rails and eventually, a full-sized mattress. Plus, it was a gift from her grandmother and how special is that?? That's all fine and well except now little Olive has taken to climbing out of her bed so it's time for the toddler bed rails. I ordered them in March and here it is, 4 months later, and I still do not have them. Apparently they are discontinued and this makes it quite difficult to get them. I finally got a nice guy at Baby Depot (where we bought the bed) to locate them for me and have them shipped to my local store. This was a week ago. They were shipped from a town just an hour or two away. After about 12 phone calls to my store trying to find ANYONE who could help (my guy hasn't been there and no one knows when he'll be there, they are all clueless) as well as someone who actually speaks English (I have found 2 now) and still NOTHING. Apparently, they have been shipped from the other store so hopefully they'll arrive today or tomorrow (and hopefully they will be the right item) and we can assemble the bed. But now I'm wondering if I need to go ahead and order the full-size conversion rails (I didn't want to jump her right to a full-sized bed - it would be too high I think, plus her room is too small). We were going to just take off the front rail and let it be a day bed, but she's a pretty restless and flippy sleeper and this bed is a little higher than the standard toddler bed. We may have to do that if these rails never come! Anyway, just my tip... If you decide to go with a convertible crib, go ahead and buy all the rails up front. And also note that in a bed like this one, the front rail is lower than the back and not so hard for a crafty toddler to scale out of, even at the lowest setting. (Olive did it for the first time around 17 months)