While I was pregnant, I thought constantly about what our son's nursery would look like. I had two main thoughts: his furniture had to be safe and durable; it had to look GREAT. Since we live in Europe, I looked at all the local stores at their cribs. While I found many beautiful bassinets and cribs locally, I wanted a system that I could add to, replace as needed, and buy linens for when we moved back to the States. I had seen Stokke featured in a few stores, and I also remember reading about it in some of my parent magazines. I went online and researched the company.
Stokke, from Norway, is sold in virtually all places and continents. The website details where you can buy Stokke -- and the list is extensive. I explored all their products while on the website, but I focused primarily on the nursery at first (though we wound up also purchasing the Xplory (stroller) and the Tripp Trapp). The Sleepi crib system grows with your child -- from tiny baby to child. We liked the idea that this furniture would last and change along with our son. The Sleepi Mini is a beautiful bassinet that we thought could be added to to make a crib. We ordered the complete system thinking that one piece of furniture would grow from bassinet, to full size crib, to toddler bed, to junior bed...to two chairs once he was too big to sleep in the junior bed. Well....we were kind of right...and kind of wrong. The Mini (bassinet) is a stand alone piece that is JUST a bassinet. It does not grow into anything else. That annoyed us -- but we didn't find this out until the items were delivered. We ordered them at a local store here in Germany, and so maybe our German and the salesperson's English confused our impression... Maybe they explained that to us at the store, but honestly we thought that the Sleepi Mini could be added to in order to make a full size crib. Stokke recommends that the Mini be used from birth to six months of age. While we still use ours occasionally, my son sleeps in his crib (he is three months old). We paid about a 1000 Euro for the Complete set. If we had purchased the bassinet (Mini) separately we would have paid around $500 U.S.
The Mini, like the full size Sleepi, is oval in shape. We liked that look and thought that it would be a calming influence on our son as he slept. The bassinet has wheels so you can wheel it from one room to another if you need to, and also you can "rock" your baby while they are inside. The furniture comes in white, natural, cherry, and walnut. We went with the natural. If you choose this color, please be aware that the furniture will not all match in color. With the natural -- it is just that: natural wood that has not been dyed. There are variances. We found this out AFTER we had sent back the Keep (closet/bookcase) three times because we felt it was the wrong color. Believe it or not, Stokke itself sent a sales rep to our home from its headquarters here in Deutschland to inspect the colors and explain to us what was going on. I felt SO EMBARRASSED!!!!!!!! But the worker, Ingo, was great and didn't seem to mind the two hour trip he had to make to us for nothing!
Putting together the Mini was not too bad. My husband did curse it out a few times, but that is par for the course if he is putting something together. In the end, it took him an hour to put it together. The mattress comes rolled up and the company recommends letting it air out overnight. The mattress was firm but I was disappointed because I wanted it to be firmer. It is made out of foam.
Once we put the mattress in the crib, I was a little upset over the fact that the mattress was not a very tight fit. In other words, I could put my finger between the mattress and the side. I wanted it to be impossible for me to do this. I tested this out in the store...and was satisfied there. I feared we had done something wrong. I called Stokke and asked if we could get another mattress or if we maybe had done something wrong. They assured me that the mattress would continue to expand and they were right. About two days after we initially unrolled it I noticed that the gap between the mattress and the side was almost non-existent. This made me feel much better.
We ordered the Tales bedding set made by Stokke. While it looks cute, I have issues with the sheets (all the zippers disintegrated in the wash making it very hard to zipper without anything to hold onto). The bumper made the slight gap between the mattress and the railings non-existent. That being said, the bumper would occasionally lose it's "grip" and gap a bit. In other words, we couldn't get it to stay as a snug fit. Didn't like this at all. But we needed the bumper b/c my son would always move about and push his head against the side. The Stokke website refers you to the stores (brick and mortar and online) that sell bedding for the Mini and the Sleepi.
In the end, we purchased this product because we liked how it looked, like the concept behind the company, had heard good things about the product(s), and liked what we saw in the store. We loved the way it looked in our son's room and I loved that it was an oval shape. My son did seem to like it in his bassinet. He looked (and I hoped he felt!) cozy and snug. Because he was a squirmer, we wound up placing his Snuggle Nest in the bassinet, so he would not have the ability to move around a lot. I loved that it had wheels and was mobile should I needed it to be.
I hated the fact that the mattress was not as firm as I wanted it to be. I hated the fact that every single sheet that I washed came out of our machine with a broken zipper. I hated that putting the sheets on the oval mattress was a pain in the butt. And I hated the fact that once we were done with the bassinet, it didn't have another use.
In the end, I am glad we have the Stokke Sleepi Mini. It is a beautiful piece of furniture that I will pass down to my own son's children should he have any. It is a well made bassinet that is truly beautiful.
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