|
|
Should You Buy a Changing Table? That Depends ...Jan 31 '12 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Furniture
The Bottom Line A dressing table will save you from backache and keep you engaged with your baby while you bathe, dress, and bathe him.
Changing tables can be enormous aids or monsters. It all depends on the amount of space you have for furniture, the type of table you buy (or make), and your comfort level with squirming babies. My youngest just turned 22, allowing me the luxury of nostalgia for warm, fuzzy diapering memories. Warm? Yes. Fuzzy? Maybe my vision after getting squirted in the eye. There is certainly more to changing tables than the act of diapering. This is also where you dress your baby, and you might even set up his first few baths there. This is why you need to take everything I mentioned into consideration. My first "changing table" was the bed. We were living with my parents, and the bedroom barely had extra room for the crib. The experience was back-breaking. I soon let Daddy be the official diaper changer. I simply couldn't handle the physical demand of having everything within my reach but out of our baby's reach. When we were expecting our second child, I vowed that there would be a changing table. This time, we bought a Jenny Lind dressing table with all the bells and whistles. I remember putting it together myself. We were in a two-bedroom apartment and both children were in the second bedroom. The dressing table was in "baby corner" where Sesame Street characters watched me diaper, bathe, and dress our daughter. The trouble with the Jenny Lind changing table was that it felt flimsy once the baby was on it. It was top heavy, but only when a baby was on it. This isn't something that you would notice when you're shopping for baby furniture before you have your child. To avoid this kind of mistake, test the changing table's tolerence for weight and movement. Push on it, try to move it from side to side and back and forth. If the weight of your hand makes the changing table unstable, imagine how unstable it would be with a baby perched on it. Our youngest had the benefit of his own room, but there was a glitch to that. The room was outfitted by former residents to be a study. They made a built-in, raw redwood bookcase that we originally used for our stereo system and music collection. The bookcase was impossible to remove, so we had to work around it somehow. I decided to make it into a changing table that really worked for me. I covered the entire thing with Contact Paper in a cute, baby-friendly print. Bags of disposable diapers lived on the bottom shelf (aka, the floor). The next shelf up was at my hip level, the perfect spot for changing a baby. I bought a dressing table pad (a foam-filled flat cushion), and surrounded it with the tools of the trade. I'm a lefty, so baby wipes and Desitin were on my left and fresh diapers on my right. I stored the baby bathtub on the "lower shelf" to prevent injuries in case it was knocked over. The upper shelf was the go-to spot for onesies and other baby outfits. When I told friends and family about my plan to work with the bookcase, I got a few odd reactions. Then they saw it. My creation was as safe as I could make it. Because I had everything within arm's reach while I supported the baby with my other hand, it was much safer than the old Jenny Lind table I bought for my daughter. Because everyone's home is different, and we all have different styles of doing things, it's important to examine your own situation. Do you have a separate room for your baby? If not, how much space will you have for the crib and whatever other furniture you might need (rocking chair, cradle, bassinette)? Do you have a disability to work around? That last question didn't really come up when my children were babies, but if I were a wheelchair user back then, a standard changing table would have been impossible to use. I would have probably used a writing desk instead of a bookcase. Again, everything would have to be within my reach -- nothing too high or low. If you can shop with another mom of your generation, you would be able to benefit from her experience. Yes, Grandmas can also shop, but it's important for the final decision to be yours and nobody else's.  |
| Read all comments (2)|Write your own comment |
|
Ads by Google
|
