How did you determine which crib you wanted? Did you check recall list and crib safety ratings?? Or did you just go to the store and pick the one you liked most? How about Carseats... how do you know which one is the best/safest?? I am starting to feel clueless on where to even start?!
Re: Cribs...Carseats...Help!
I really didn't know too much about cribs so I went to the store and picked one I liked. We liked the Eddie Bauer travel system for the car seat. When we switched to the convertible car seat at 8 months, we heard a lot of good things about Britax so we ended up getting one of those..the Britax Boulevard.
Wish I could help you more, but basically we just went by what we liked.
People on here recommended Baby Bargains. It is a lot of information, but I mainly looked at their top 3 recs (usually summarized at the end of the chapter). Baby Bargains compiles parents recommendations
However, I ended up with a crib that was a consumer reports Best Buy. Consumer Reports does lab studies. But they don't do ratings every year-- fortunately they just did cribs in September. Here are their recs for cribs:
Best value, single drop side
Graco Lauren Convertible, $150, CR Best Buy
Easy to operate and reasonably sturdy.
Best single drop side, for a price
Bellini Bella, $930
This is a heavy, carved wooden furniture-quality crib, which can be converted to a full-size bed. To avoid the confusing assembly instructions, ask the store to put it together in your home. (We obtained a $125 estimate for delivery and assembly from a local Bellini store.)
Better double drop side, for a price
Bellini Isabella $620
This sturdy and attractive wooden crib has simple, clean lines, but difficult assembly instructions. As with the Bellini Bella (single drop-side), have the store assemble it in your home.
Best values, stationary sides
DaVinci Emily 4791, $250, CR Best Buy Ikea Leksvik, $160, CR Best Buy
The Da Vinci converts to day bed and full-size bed. The Ikea is designed to convert to a toddler bed. Our engineers had trouble following the Ikea's pictorial instructions, and weren't helped by an incorrect response from Customer Service.
Here are consumer reports recs for carseats:
These are less expensive than others and are very easy to use, with excellent fit to vehicle.
CR Ratings for Car seats
CR Ratings for Car seats
Top-scoring seat; excellent for ease of use and fit to vehicle.
CR Ratings for Car seats