A Cash Cow for Little Tikes?
Written: Apr 04 '05 (Updated Apr 04 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Bringing happiness to your child, safe edges.
Cons: Price, potentially supplying your own plywood.
The Bottom Line: I recommend this for any parent you has a boy who loves cars (or at least this one).
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| chretiensucks's Full Review: Little Tikes Roadster Toddler Bed |
This bed has got to be a money making machine! And no, I don’t mean it is a money making machine for the consumer. It’s got to be a cash cow for Little Tikes. At least compared to other toddler beds. My wife and I decided to get Christopher a toddler bed. He’s been sleeping in his own room since day one and now that he’s 20 months old and wakes up before 6 am (and before us), we thought it’d be better for him to get him out of the crib so he could at least move around in his room once he wakes up. At Toy’s R Us, the Little Tikes Roadster Toddler bed was lined up with all these other regular toddler beds 2/3rds the price. And these other beds were made out of real wood! No way does a bed made entirely out of plastic (with the exception of 4 steel bolts) cost as much to manufacture. Thankfully we got it at a sale price of $125, down from $185. But even at the regular price, it’s worth it! Recommended on the box for 15 months to 5 years of age, any older and he should probably be in the twin size car.
Transporting it home
The box that this thing comes in is bulky and huge. The reason is to accommodate the long sides of the bed. Good thing plastic isn’t that heavy. At almost 6 feet long, you need a minivan to transport this thing because in many other vehicles, this box is going to be sticking out, a lot. Your other alternative is to open the box, take all the pieces out (there’s not that many) and fold the box so you can take it all home with you. OR you can order it online directly off the Little Tikes website at http://www.littletikes.com and get it delivered by FedEx at $48 (which kind of gives you an idea of just how big this box is). By the way last time I checked, this bed was out of stock.
Assembly
Not only is this bed much cheaper to make than other beds, you also have to supply your own plywood if you don’t have a mattress with its own support! That’s because the inside ledges of the plastic borders are only about two to three inches. So any other mattress is going to cave in the middle. Luckily I am in the process of renovating my basement and had plenty of wood left over. The instructions recommend a 51”x29”x3/4” sheet of plywood but I made due with 10 pieces of 29”x5”x5/8” mdf that I had lying around. I’d line them up as slats going across the bed.
There’s basically 4 main pieces to this bed - The two sides, the front, and the rear of the car. They all snap into each other and then you slide a steel bolt into each corner lock them together. Then the plastic wheels screw into the sides of the bed. Be careful with the decals for the wheels. I messed one up by not taking more care in lining it up so now it has a lot of wrinkles in it (good thing it’s the one against the wall). Despite having to provide our own mattress support, this bed was extremely easy to put together, even with my boy impatiently trying to get inside it while I was trying to assemble it.
Tools required: A Philips screwdriver for the wheels, a slot screwdriver for the bolts (how about some consistency here?), and a wrench for the nuts. Let’s not even talk about what you need to cut your own plywood.
One last thing to worry about – There’s a lot of plastic shavings sticking to either the bed pieces or the inside of the box left behind by the manufacturer. You want to make sure you wipe these things off before you pull them out unless you want them all over the inside of your house.
Once in place
Because plastic is not as strong as wood, the hollow forms of each side of this bed are also built for strength. As a result, they are bulky. And because it also has to look like a car, it's longer and wider than a regular toddler bed - probably by about a foot and a half lengthwise and a foot in width. So make sure you have the space.
Conclusion - The reason you buy this thing
I saw an episode of trading spaces last year where one of the designers actually cut a real car in half and squeezed all 800 pounds of it into a child's room to make his bed. If I was one of the kid's parents, I would have freaked out. This is definitely the more economical way to go. Even though blue is the only available color, it luckily matched the room colors we already have. This plastic bed does also have some safety advantages. There are no sharp corners. Everything is rounded and smooth. And even though it is cheaper to make, than other beds, you’re really paying to see the smile on your child’s face when he plays/sleeps in his bed. I’m surprised Christopher got any sleep the first night. And it’s about as close to my dream car as I’m ever going to get.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
chretiensucks
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Member: joe unpronounceable
Location: GTA, Ontario, Canada
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
How do people with more than one child do it?
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