Before You Decide On Infant Bedding: Planning Your Nursery
The crib is the center of every nursery, and the bedding is vital to making your crib look perfect. Because of the large selection, you may find it easier to shop online for the perfect crib. You may find that the crib set you like is completely different from the one your husband chooses. And don’t forget, baby bedding can get very expensive. For high end bedding sets, you can end up paying more for the bedding than for the crib! To make things easier on yourself, decide on the style of bedding you want and how much you’re willing to pay, before you ever start shopping.
If you’re planning on having more children, it makes sense to think ahead. If you’re having a girl, you might have decided on baby girl bedding, covered with frills and pretty pinks, or maybe something trendier (but still very feminine), like a Pixie Stix 4 piece crib set. But the bedding set that looks great with a daughter won’t look so hot with a son. So if you’re thinking about spending much money on a crib set, pick a neutral style that you can recycle with future children. There is really no reason to buy new bedding for every new baby. Bedding sets can get as expensive as you’re willing to spend, so plan a budget ahead of time and stick to it no matter what. An infant has no concept of money (or style!) so there’s no reason to spend $800 on a bedding set that she’s just going to spit up on anyway.
Baby stores, even the large ones like Babies R Us, usually can’t offer the range of choices that an online-only store can, particularly when the ecommerce site is strictly focused on selling baby bedding. For example, while a web store may have 20, 30 or even more brands to choose from, most offline stores carry only a couple of brands. Some only have one. Even if you’re shopping at a big-box discounter, you may find that they can’t match the prices you’ll find online.
But you won’t be able to touch or handle the bedding before you buy it, which is one of the biggest problems with shopping online. That means when you find a bedding set that looks soft and cuddly, you can’t really be sure until you buy it. Pictures are great, but even the highest quality product photos don’t compare to a real-life examination. To reduce frustration and wasted time, plan a budget and a general theme before you start looking online. Otherwise the range of options can bog you down.