The "Ultimate Crib Sheet"?
Nov 15 '00
In the midst of a torrent of "New! Must Have!" baby products that end up consigned to dusty oblivion in your closet of "why did I ever buy this" stuff, every once in a while there's a winner. The sort of product whose utility is so blazingly obvious that it has you smacking yourself in the head wondering why no one ever thought of it before. Right after you run out and buy one (or two, or three ...).
The Ultimate Crib Sheet from Basic Comfort (yes, the same folks who make the nursing bib I recently reviewed) is such a product. If your baby sleeps in a crib, you simply must get a couple of these. They will save you time, aggravation and even, I dare say, money.
The Ultimate Crib Sheet is billed as "4 sheets in one". That's a bit of an exaggeration. It's more like 2 sheets in one -- (1) a Quick Change sheet and (2) a waterproof, absorbent mattress pad. (Feature #2 morphs into three separate features in Basic Comfort's marketing literature.) Notwithstanding the slight exaggeration, this product still merits the "ultimate" label.
The biggest innovation and time-saver is the Quick Change feature. Most crib sheets are fitted sheets that wrap tightly around the sides of the mattress. The tight fit is necessary for safety: a flat sheet, or a loose fitted sheet, can pose a strangulation risk. But the flip side of the safety factor is the "pain in the you-know-what" factor: changing a snug fitted sheet on a heavy crib mattress, which itself fits snugly against the crib slats and may even rest under attached bumpers is not an easy task. It's particularly annoying when it's the middle of the night and you have been rudely awakened to find your screaming and wet (but, of course, still adorable) baby lying in the equivalent of a toxic waste dump.
Quick Change sheets (several companies make them) are a brilliantly simple solution to a problem that has been aggravating new parents for a long time. Imagine a flat sheet exactly proportioned to fit across the top of a crib mattress, outfitted with several short elastic straps attached at the perimeter of the sheet. The straps are just long enough to fit around the adjacent crib slat and snap closed to form a tight loop. The sheet is securely attached (no strangulation risk), but trivially easy to put on or off (no lifting of heavy mattresses).
Now if this product were just a Quick Change sheet, it could justifiably be called the "Better Crib Sheet", but calling it "The Ultimate Crib Sheet" raises the bar. Here's where the second (or 2nd, 3rd and 4th, depending on who's doing the counting) feature comes in. The Basic Comfort version is not just a standard percale sheet updated with an easy-on/easy-off feature. Instead, it has three separate layers: (1) a nice, soft cotton surface next to baby's skin, (2) a super-absorbent central layer which wicks moisture away from the baby (the manufacturer claims it will absorb four cups of water) and (3) a waterproof backing to protect the mattress. This is where the money savings comes in: with the Ultimate Crib Sheet, there's no need to buy separate mattress pads!
To my knowledge, no other company makes an equivalent product (please leave a comment if you've found one). There are other Quick Change sheets out there, but the ones I've seen are single-layer cotton flannel. In fact, I bought one by mistake when I decided that I needed a third Quick Change sheet and only realized after the fact that it lacked the waterproof backing.
So is there a downside to this baby bedding wonder? Only a very minor one. If you've absolutely fallen in love with your "Winnie the Pooh meets the Power Rangers on a psychedelic purple spiral background" designer bedding, the bad news is that the Ultimate Crib Sheet doesn't come in a matching pattern. It's available in white only. But don't despair yet. If you've purchased the full designer set, then you can add an Ultimate Crib Sheet to the mix and it will be essentially invisible from outside the crib. You will still have the full effect of bumpers, side view of the fitted sheet (remember that the Ultimate Crib Sheet does not cover the sides of the mattress) and dust ruffle. And as for the baby's view: if you're following the current medical fashion, s/he is sleeping facing upwards and doesn't see the sheet anyway!
One safety warning: if you're not careful to remember to unsnap every one of the loops before ripping the sheet off of the mattress, you might tear one of the loops off. In that case, the sheet might end up not being attached securely enough. Be sure to carefully sew it back on -- or buy a new sheet if, like me, you're both lazy and incompetent with needle and thread.
The Ultimate Crib Sheet is available at babycenter for $15 or through BabyAbby.com for only $13. (BabyAbby seems to be an affiliate of the manufacturer: I found them through basiccomfort.com.) They make great gifts for new parents (as long as you know that the parents are planning to use a crib). You'll want at least two: one for the crib and one for the laundry. As for your designer fitted sheet, you may only need one: the Ultimate Crib Sheet does such a good job of protecting against leaks that you may never change a fitted crib sheet again!
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theeye
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Location: New York, NY (it's a hell of a town!)
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About Me:
Company president, math geek, first time mom at 39, epinion addict. Sleep? Not lately.
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