Customer Reviews

Arm's Reach Mini Co-Sleeper Bassinet - Natural

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

We just retired our co-sleeper after 7 months of use with our first baby. I wanted to write a review because when I was pregnant and as a new mom it was so hard to decide if it would be worth the money.

We found the co-sleeper to be a life... rather, sleep-saver, for the first few months. It made exclusively breastfeeding soooo much easier because I didn't even have to get out of bed. I could breastfeed in a semi-awake state and then fall back asleep easily (priceless when you are waking up every 2 hours). We also had our changing table at the foot of our bed so I went back to sleep after feeding and my hubbie took his turn to change the diaper and lay our little one back down without having to make a trek to the nursery.

As new parents, we naturally felt anxious about leaving our baby alone for even a second. We slept with a night light on so we could look over and actually see her whenever we wanted. We didn't lose any sleep worrying if she was ok.

We found the co-sleeper a little tricky to set up and take down but unless you will be doing that daily it isn't that big of a deal. We like the portability of the co-sleeper. We moved it into the living room for our daughters naps so we could clean or just spend some alone time cuddling in our bed (by the way, co-sleeping does NOT ruin *good* marriages). We also took it out of town with us and didn't have to worry about those scarey hotel cribs. It traveled very nicely!

My only disappointment with the co-sleeper is that I wanted to use it longer. We got the mini to fit our small 2 bedroom apartment but I was worried that the weight limit was only 23lbs. Well, at 7 months our little one is starting to pull herself up on the sides which means she could easily topple over the edge. Thus, we have moved on to a full size crib at just shy of 15lbs. Interestingly, the co-sleeper warns that it should not be used with babies over 3 months or those that can roll over. Hmm, I feel sorry for the parents with the 23lb 3 month old!!

So, was it worth it? Yes. However, a standard bassinet that you can probably find easier and cheaper would probably do just as well. The nice thing is that gently used co-sleepers have a great re-sale value online so even if you find it is not worth your money you can get most of it back by selling it.

WARNING TO PARENTS: If I can stress one thing it would be to follow the directions and ATTACH IT TO THE BED. We didn't at first until one night when I fell asleep in our bed while nursing and our daughter slid off my lap. I awoke to find her wedged between our mattress and the co-sleeper with just her little head peaking out!! OMG!! Thankfully her little feet caught the frame of our bed so she didn't slide all the way down. Had we attached it to the bed as the directions say there would not have been a big enough gap for that to happen. So ATTACH IT! - it easily dettaches and reattaches for portability anyway so there is no reason not to.

I used this product for about 7 months with my second daughter, and I have to say that I liked it so much that I am only sorry that I didn't have it around for my first.

For my first daughter, we slept her in a graco portable crib/playpen with the bassinet insert next to the bed. It was fine, but it was huge - we had to rearrange our room to make it fit next to the bed, and when I got her to nurse at night, I had to get up and get her in and out. Being an anxious first-time mother, I was also constantly sitting up to check on her whenever I awoke to her movements in the night.

The mini cosleeper fit easily right next to my bed and attached tightly and safely to it with the included bedplate and strap (attaches to the cosleeper and runs under the mattress and pulls firmly against the far side with a plastic plate). I could see her while I was lying down, which was great, and when she woke up, I was able to just bring her to me and lay her back down without actually getting out of bed. It was wonderful.

The mini cosleeper has its own special sheets (additional can be purchased) with lots of Velcro to attach the mattress firmly on the underside of the mattress to the frame. This is what is recommended for safety purposes by Arm's Reach. Standard elastic bassinet sheets do fit the mattress as well, and we chose to use these even though it is not recommended by the manufacturer. Height extenders are also available for the legs, so that you can make the product fit a higher mattress.

We got our mini cosleeper mainly because I expected my older daughter to want to come back in our bed, at least temporarily, when the baby was born (I figured, who wants be the only one sleeping alone!). Since it's not safe to cosleep with a baby and an older sibling (the heavily sleeping child can overlay the baby), and big sister was too young to sleep between my husband and the edge of the bed, I thought this would be perfect. Also, I believe heavily in swaddling (see my article on Swaddling Your Breastfed Baby), and I'm not personally wild about cosleeping with a swaddled baby. Ironically, our older daughter never did return to our bed, but the baby slept SO well swaddled in the cosleeper (a 6-8 hour stretch, almost right away), we stuck with it. It was great having her so close with the feeling of being with me in my bed, while still having some space to stretch out and roll around.

The mini cosleeper comes in a range of colors and patterns and range in price from about $130 to $160, although more expensive styles are available. You can get them in the traditional fabric/netting style, or splurge for natural wood slat or other more custom looks. They are even now making a product that converts to a lower crib, rather than having the storage underneath. If that had always been available, I would have never bought a full-sized portable crib, since the playpen function is not important to me. The mini provides more than enough room to sleep until your child is old enough to sleep in a regular bed, or alternately a mat, cot or sleeping bag of some kind.

Additional features and benefits of the mini cosleeper include the easy transition from the lowered side to a regular bassinet (seems tricky to figure out, but easy once you've got it down). It's also easy to disconnect from the bedplate (two squeeze latches) and then you can roll it from room to room since (unlike its full-sized counterparts), it's small enough to fit through standard doorways. It's so much smaller and lighter than the full-size portable cribs, that after years of traveling with those, it was a delight to travel with the mini. They also have pretty good resale value, selling at the time of this article, between $50 and $100 on ebay and Craigslist - neutral colors are a better buy for this purpose than a pink or patterned look.

After using a range of products, and finally coming to the mini cosleeper, I can't recommend this product highly enough.

I used this co-sleeper for both of my sons and it held up beautifully - so well, in fact that our friends' newborn girl is now having a go! As said by the other reviewers, it is very easy to pop up, attach and fold away. It is also the best set-up for night feedings and attachment-sleeping. All three babies have enjoyed sleeping in it, and the beauty of the natural style is that it goes with just about any adult decor (no trying to coordinate your duvet to teddy bears and rainbows) without being uncuddly and is completely ungendered. The various pockets and cubbies are perfect for keeping diapering supplies handy and hidden. As for being cumbersome in the bedroom, I found that it helps to put it as close to the head of the bed as possible (if you can, do without a nightstand for the duration) and then your legs are clear for getting in and out. Also, it makes looking over at each other that much easier.

I don't know why they make it a selling point that it's somehow beneficial to post-op mommies. For me, it was much harder to sit up, twist at the waist and lift my daughter up out of this than it was to just get out of bed. And that's the other thing- if this is attached to your bed, you have to scoot down past it just to get out of bed- not at all easy or enjoyable if you've had a c-section. Aside from that, I will say that as a free standing bassinet, it's sturdy, cute, and great for people with a small bedroom. Folds up compactly for travel although it is a tad heavy.

I like this because it was very easy to setup (it unfolds quite magically) and the strap that goes under the mattress keeps it quite securely close to the bed. The only complaint I have is that they don't include any height adjusters with it. So I will have to order them seperately.

We decided the baby needed to sleep on a slight incline, so we ordered a foam wedge from Amazon.

I ordered this product from Amazon two months before I gave birth. Bought it because a friend of mine had it, and at the moment, I found it cute. It was smaller than the usual bulky wooden cribs which my hubby and I don't really like. When we received the product we assembled it right away. It was pretty easy to assemble. We used the under part of the crib as a compartment for our baby's clothes. The side pockets were pretty convenient for diaper storage. It was perfect at first... but now that my baby hit the three month mark. We are realizing that it is not really that good of a buy. Why? Because our three month old nearly fills up the crib from end to end. By the time she reaches 6 months, I am sure she won't fit in it anymore. I kinda wish I bought the bigger version of the Armsreach Co-Sleeper. Another thing I didn't like about this product was the disassembling part. We couldn't put it back to its travel size because the button you have to click to make it compact was too hard. Too hard for even my hubby. And so whenever we take it to grandmas house or when we travel, we carry the whole thing! Definitely not convenient.

If you are thinking of buying this product, just go for the regular sized Armsreach Cosleeper. At least with that, you get the same Cosleeper design, but bigger... Or just buy those Graco Pack n' Play ones.

Hope this review was helpful!

Have used it for the first 3 weeks so far and it's really lovely both in terms of functionality and appearance. It folds and unfolds easily (we've already transported it from house to house); the four pockets on the sides are useful for burp cloths and hats etc; we bought the Snuggle Nest with incline and it fits nicely within the bassinet; the simple appearance (we bought the natural color one) lets it fit in anywhere. Also, the price on Amazon was $40 cheaper than the one I found in a shop near my home! We have used it as a free-standing crib without hooking it up to the bed but we roll it over and place it beside me at night and it is just as functional.

In full disclosure, I never used this product for our baby. The co-sleeper didn't fit our platform bed and it would have been too much of a pain to lift our particular bed up high enough to use the co-sleeper function. This is not why I gave it two stars, however, because making the product fit our bed is in some ways our problem (although it would be nice if Arm's Reach considered this issue).

We returned the item because when I took it out of the box and its carrying case the chemical smell hit me like a brick. I thought I'd set it up and let it off-gass for a few weeks but when I put my nose to the mattress/upholstery not much had changed. There have been links between chemical off-gassing and SIDS and it just wasn't worth it to me to take the risk. Furthermore, we ordered the Arm's Reach organic mattress but it lacks a stiff backing--Arm's Reach actually wants you to put their organic mattress on top of the original mattress, which negates the entire purpose of an organic mattress. And then try to find mini co-sleeper organic sheets that fit the system = not so easy.

I would have given this 1 star but I like the idea of a co-sleeper that snuggles up to a bed. Great idea. Too bad the product is pretty toxic.

We have used this co-sleeper with our 2nd son for almost 3 months now. Since he still likes to sleep tightly swaddled and isn't rolling over yet, I'm hoping we can get at least another month out of it to give him time to start sleeping through the night. :) Anyway, I love this bassinet/co-sleeper. With our first son I had a regular bassinet and found it next to impossible to even sit up to put him back into the bassinet after breastfeeding him in the middle of the night. (It's amazing how sheer exhaustion can make simple things seem impossible.) I ended up with him sleeping in our bed most of the time, or holding him while we slept. This led to him sleeping in our bed WAY longer than I had ever wanted! I had seen this mini-cosleeper back then but didn't want to spend the money on it. When we got pregnant with #2, I knew I wanted to buy this and hoped it would be worth the money. I have not been disappointed! I can lift our newest son out of the co-sleeper, feed him, and slide him back into the co-sleeper all without even sitting up. To a sleep deprived mom, that's huge! I also love being able to have him near enough to hear him breathe, but not have to worry about rolling over on him or pulling my covers over him while I sleep.

I use this as a co-sleeper attached to the bed. My husband set it up originally and he didn't think it was hard to set up. It was a little challenging to lift our king size mattress enough to slide the straps under to attach it to the bed, but once attached, it's easy enough to remove and reattach with the clips nearest the co-sleeper.

As for the legs, I read some of the other reviews that said to use the bed risers from Bed, Bath and Beyond because they're cheaper and more stable than the ones from Arm's Reach. We got the squarish 3 inch bed risers from BB&B. With those and the legs/casters that came with the bassinet, it is the perfect height for our king size bed AND it is very stable. At around 3 weeks, our son started having a bit of reflux, so I added one pair of the 2" extenders that came with the bassinet to the end where my son's head rests. It gives a very gentle slope and seemed to help his reflux.

I also noticed a few reviews had issues with the sheet. I washed and air dried the sheet before the first time we used it. It air dried really quickly (a couple of hours maybe)and didn't shrink at all. I bought a bassinet-sized waterproof pad at Babies 'R Us to protect the sheet. It lays nicely in the bassinet and nothing ever even gets on the sheet so I don't have to remove it or wash it frequently.

Since this review deals with a sleep-instrument, I also want to say that after having two babies, I fully understand that some babies are programmed to sleep and others are not! My first was not and thankfully my second is. I really don't think that it's necessarily the sleep environment (ie. crib, bassinet, co-sleeping in bed) that affects a newborn's sleep as much as HOW the newborn came programmed for sleep. Thus, this is a tool to make co-sleeping/sleeping/breastfeeding easier for the PARENTS. For more resources on baby sleep, I recommend the books "Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler and Preschooler" by Ann Douglas and "No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. Both are informative and helpful when you're in the sleep-deprived trenches of early parenting and beyond.

We bought this 3 years ago for our first born...then used it for our second child..and now bought it as a gift for a friend. It was wonderful to have our children so close while they were <6 months of age. We initially lived in a house with a smallish master bedroom so the mini co-sleeper was perfect. We even brought it on trips with us because it folded up so easily.
The only negative thing I have to even offer is that you should realize ahead of time that you have to scoot down some in order to be able to get out of your bed. Not a big deal to me--but it prevented one of my relatives from ordering it.
Great product that has withstood the test of time!
Highly recommended.