Assembling baby items $#%*!

missnc77 · April 2016

Dear Grecco - F U and your ridiculously hard to use snaps. I will NOT be defeated.

thismakes4 · April 2016

Hahaha, oh man, I remember things like this with my first. It will get easier.

Charissadeats · April 2016

That made me laugh. We also assembled the stroller today and DH was sweating buckets at the end because of all the bits and bobs.

Our crib and compactum set took him and a friend 6 hours to put together.

I think they make it difficult to assemble on purpose so that new parents can learn patience.

missnc77 · April 2016

I WIN!!!!!

And my triumph is short lived after opening the Jumperoo box. I need a drink.

saladflambe · April 2016

lol I have made DH do alllll the assembling - I'd probably get pissed and bash things with a hammer

yogahh · April 2016

When we did the crib, it took us 2 hours. Reviews had everyone saying 30 minutes tops. Yeah right! I told dh then, I don't know how single ladies put all this crap together themselves. It's almost impossible.

dsmith211 · April 2016

Not looking forward to this now. I just showed DH and he said he'd be able to handle it... So I'm going to hold him to that.

missnc77 · April 2016

@dsmith211 I have my husband bravely wallpapering an accent wall in the nursery, which we're both terrified about since we just had the room professionally painted. I felt like I should do something, but that something turned into 2 hours spent between that glider and jumperoo. I'm so glad I didn't have time to get my nails done for my shower yesterday, because they are a hot mess now.

dsmith211 · April 2016

@missnc77 I may end up doing assembly on some of the stuff anyway... Even though he said he would do it. Mostly for the same reasons. He's painting the room himself, putting up new blinds next week, and is going to attempt to put in the new flooring (my dad is on speed dial for this one). I kinda feel like after all that he may appreciate the help even though he doesn't realize it now. I'll use it as a test of patience for the baby. Lol.

mcb2016 · April 2016

This thread is making me thankful for all the hand me downs we were given. Think I'll be looking for anything even slightly complicated used from here on out. The crib took my husband hours. My husband does not have the time for it and I am not at all the patient follow instructions type.

Pascal86 · April 2016

This is exactly what I came on here to look for - a place to complain about these stupid things to put together. We have a hand-me-down Sundvik crib from Ikea, and our friends were using it with their kid and took one side off so it was open, and put little plastic plugs in the assembly holes that became exposed. These plugs are appearing to be 100% impossible to remove, basically making this entire crib a worthless piece of crap. So mad right now, I've made so many gouges in the wood trying to get these f***ers out, and zero progress.

ETA: I figured out I had to unscrew them from the backside about 30 seconds after I posted this. Reminder: always try to think harder before applying brute force.

missnc77 · April 2016

@Pascal86 - I thought the reminder was when in doubt, use brute force?

I was about to get pliers to try and snap those suckers on the glider shut.

kitandcat · April 2016

The effing changing pad from the playard CANNOT BE FIGURED OUT! It is literally LITERALLY impossible!

salbb · April 2016

Have a car seat which says wash the inner before use ... No idea how to get it out, instructions are super complicated - do they not realise people with pregnancy brain are trying to figure this s£&it out.... I need diagrams and SIMPLE instructions!!!
Trying to figure out just how important it is to wash before use.... Baby will be dressed right?!

helleebellee · April 2016

I've put so many baby things together that I rarely have issues anymore. My mom told me it would take at least an hour for me to figure out the pack n play she bought me. It took 20 minutes and only because I was on the phone and doing it all one handed. The rock n play, however, was a pain in the ass, but once I figured out what the hell they wanted me to do, it came together quickly.

kbrands7 · April 2016

Most things went together the second time in a matter of minutes...except for the $!#% newborn cuddle rocker on our pack n play. It.will.not.click. I'm convinced now that we must have broken it when we disassembled it because I can only get 1/2 of the metal tubes to click into place. I'd just give up except that we use this thing in lieu of a bouncer & swing. I don't want to buy more baby gear!

Eta. Okay, I'm not crazy. 1/2 of the spring pins are misaligned (they were fine 2 yrs ago). Now I just need to figure out how to adjust them since I can't exactly take the tubing apart.
Eta2: DH to the rescue! He was able to thread wire down around the pins and lever with a screwdriver at the same time to pull them up where they needed to be. It's fixed and assembled!

yogahh · April 2016

Is anyone else slightly worried about putting their kid in something you built? I have visions of Harper falling through the bouncer that I had to assemble. I'm not an "assembler" and shouldn't be trusted with these things!

kbrands7 · April 2016

@yogahh I always end up tugging at things and pushing at things a bit to be sure they feel sturdy. I also make DH check things that I've assembled...not that I'm bad at it, but I like having a second opinion.

saladflambe · April 2016

@yogahh do you have a cat? If it holds my cat, we're good

(I'm kidding)

yogahh · April 2016

saladflambe said:

@yogahh do you have a cat? If it holds my cat, we're good (I'm kidding)

I do! She has crawled into the car seat, but not the bouncer yet. I am actually tempted to try out the carrier with her in it, but decided not to get my eyes clawed out!

lalala2004 · April 2016

I usually have DH do this sort of thing, but when my mom and I went to assemble my cosleeper bassinet, which didn't even really come in pieces, btw, I was so ragey! It has all of these clicking mechanisms inside it you can even see, and hidden buttons to get things to snap in and out of place. I told my mom after we're done with it there is no way I'm disassembling it. When we're done with it, I'll throw it in a giant trash bag and stick it in the attic until the next kid.

missnc77 · April 2016

@yogahh YES! My husband came in from grocery shopping and saw the glider and said "Wow! Good job! Soooo - any missing screws or pieces left over?" Thanks for the vote of confidence. But no really, it makes me so nervous that I missed a step somewhere, and the kid's going to rocket out of there.

folamij · April 2016

We've been overly lucky with the items we've purchased. The crib and dresser took the longest. Thankfully MH and brother put it together while I supervised, so my view on how easy it was might be slightly off, but since I didn't hear cursing I'm going with somewhat easy assembly

onislandtime · April 2016

For the life of me I cannot (and neither can SO) get the damn toy bar thingy to stay on the bouncer. And I've completely given up on the dang rock n play. It's sitting in pieces in the corner of the nursery.

doozer1345 · April 2016

My mom took apart my Graco Snugride car seat to wash it. Of course she has no clue how she did it and I can't find a Youtube video showing me how to put it back together again. I cuss every time I look at it in the corner of my living room. Anything else I can handle great!

kbrands7 · April 2016

@doozer1345 the Graco website has instruction manuals even for older products. I'm not sure about videos though.

cmjenkies · April 2016

@missnc77 dude, no, the snaps on Graco swings/gliders are awful! You need Hulk hands to close them, but they'd need to be tiny Hulk hands to fit in the spaces you need to to snap them. I about threw the thing across the room when I put mine together.

hellogoodbye2 · April 2016

Don't think you have to set everything up yourself! Coming from a very independent lady, it was hard for me to ask for help! I overdid it one night putting together the stroller & swing!

JessicaB0627 · April 2016

DH and I are one of those married couples that can't assemble furniture together. It's a "too many cooks in the kitchen" type situation. Sometimes he does things wrong (because he won't read directions) but he doesn't take criticism well so I have to wait until he's not around to fix it. I might as well just assemble everything myself!

doozer1345 · April 2016

kbrands7 said:

@doozer1345 the Graco website has instruction manuals even for older products. I'm not sure about videos though.

I figured it out...Now I can't buckle it. FML

doozer1345 · April 2016

Do they have companies you can hire to put this stuff together for you?

Pascal86 · April 2016

@missnc77 I DID get out the pliers and snapped some stuff off... before turning it over and realizing I could unscrew it. Whatever, crib is together now, we'll deal with all the scratches I added to it.

wsgjmw1 · April 2016

JessicaB0627 said:

DH and I are one of those married couples that can't assemble furniture together. It's a "too many cooks in the kitchen" type situation. Sometimes he does things wrong (because he won't read directions) but he doesn't take criticism well so I have to wait until he's not around to fix it. I might as well just assemble everything myself!

Same here - DH and I cannot assemble things together lol we're a great team otherwise just not while building stuff. I stay down stairs while DH puts on angry music really loud, then I hear lots curse words and banging . Eventually it's all done and looks great .

Kurrant · April 2016

JessicaB0627 said:

DH and I are one of those married couples that can't assemble furniture together. It's a "too many cooks in the kitchen" type situation. Sometimes he does things wrong (because he won't read directions) but he doesn't take criticism well so I have to wait until he's not around to fix it. I might as well just assemble everything myself!

MH is the same. He refuses to even acknowledge the booklets. He would rather push and hammer his way through like a caveman than read the books. The annoying thing is though that he insists on putting the stuff together anyways! I just take the books and read them while he scratches his head and calls the item stupid and unintuitive ( his favourite word when he can't get something to work) I wait till he is pulling hair out and say "let me try" and BAM ... Done. So far we have gone through this with the stroller, car seat and baby monitor.

Soontobejones33 · April 2016

Im glad that hubby and i are great at putting together stuff together. Our first bedroom set as a couple was from Walmart. If you've never put together any furniture from Walmart, its ikea but worse. Yes i said worse. It took a looooong time. But no fights and this was early in the relationship. With that said i put together the dresser we bought for baby's room by myself. It took most of the day and wore me out, 7 months pregnant you know, but i did it by my lonesome. I avoided putting the back on as aiming nails is not my strong point. I also did the stroller, mostly, and figured out the car seat. The in and outs of the car seat took the longest as pregnancy brain was strong. I do love problem solving though, puzzles and such so i just see it as a challenge rather than frustration.
Now if i had a man who refused to read the instructions, well it wouldnt happen because one of us would be in jail (me). It doesn't make sense to ignore the instructions. Why make life harder?

Edited for grammer. Dang p-brain.

cortney626 · April 2016

I'm usually really good at assembling things. But I had a little bit of trouble with the mamaroo and our rock n play. I had to walk away and return later. We have yet to put together the crib. That should be fun. Hubby and I don't do well with putting things together.

ashleyrobertson0113 · April 2016

So far I've assembled 2 shelves, the crib, the bassinet, the rocker, the play mat, and the bouncer. And every time DH just sits there and watches or is doing something else. Like..."A little help please?!" Drives me crazy.

Delitachan · April 2016

I envy you all...
I have the stroller, crib, bassinet, etc, but they're all still in the package. Why? Because we're in an apartment in the midst of buying a house. Our loan SHOULD be approved in two weeks and construction done in two weeks as well. Since our apartment is only 2 bedroom, the second bedroom is FILLED with our baby gear. We do not want to set ANYTHING up until it's time to move.

Chappy_jr · April 2016

I remember the first time I took the car seat out of the car to clean it and wash the fabric. I had serious doubts that it would ever get reassembled.

nerdymama15 · April 2016

This is why I let DH assemble everything. It works better if I stay out of the way or just sit and watch. I assembled something once a couple of years ago and it took me like three hours when it would have taken hubby like thirty minutes.

KidShrink · April 2016

When we got our crib back in January, I was super excited to put it together. So I managed to convince DH to help me out at 9pm on a Friday night. And then a piece wasn't working. So next morning, I show up at the store, and tell them I'm going to need a replacement piece. The woman at the store dares telling me that I'll need to bring her some other pieces for her to let me have whatever she's about to give me (seems like they changed how the assembly was done between the model I got and the other one). She got the preggo look of death, let me leave with the pieces, and told me to call her if it didn't work. Well it didn't. We agreed they'd send me the other crib she got those pieces from, and I literally lost sleep over whether that crib would work or not because this was the last one they had in stock, and it takes 14-16 weeks to get a new one, which wouldn't have made it in time. Thankfully for them, it all worked out.

Also, what's the deal with all the different size batteries in everything?! Can't they include the batteries in there?

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