# Pack n play vs. cosleeper?



## ecoteat (Mar 3, 2006)

I've never owned or used either a pack n play or a cosleeper, so can someone explain what the major differences are between them? Can a baby comfortably sleep in a pack n play at night? Do any of your babies do that? It seems they are less expensive and more versatile than cosleepers, which we are thinking about trying. DD sleeps in bed with us, but we want to experiment to see if she'd sleep more soundly in her own space. There's a crib in her nursery, but she only uses it for naps and I'd like to keep it that way for now.


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## colobus237 (Feb 2, 2004)

The pack&play has its mattress close to the floor - the baby is at the bottom. In a cosleeper the mattress is just a few inches from the top, and the baby sleeps just slightly below the level of the adult mattress (with higher rails on the sides not adjoining the adult bed).
So the baby would have to travel farther to move from the adult bed into the pack&play. I could never easily transfer my babies 4" from my bed into the cosleeper without waking them, though.
My babies have slept in pack&plays while visiting or on vacation, and seemed to be plenty comfortable. My dd still sleeps in one when we visit my mom.


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## melanie83103 (Jun 23, 2006)

Pack n plays have the bassenet attachement, which puts the baby right near the top. But that's not safe after the first couple months. The only difference I can see between the pack n play and the cosleeper is that the cosleeper doesnt have the rail on that one side by the bed, so there is no divider between your bed and theirs.

The nice thing about pack n plays is that they are super cheap - you can pick one up for very little money (40 or 50 $), and give it a try. I think the mattress in them is plenty soft enough for all night sleep.

Melanie


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## joyfilledmomma (Mar 14, 2006)

my dd slept in a pack and play (in the bassinet part) for her first 4 months or so (now she sleeps with us). i thought we'd use the pack and play more, but she really prefers to sleep with us when we're away as well and i'm not big into playpens so she's never been in it like that. still i think they're comfortable for the babies and cheaper than cosleepers. if i had to do it over (and had the $) i'd buy a cosleeper because as i understand it they are almost on the same level as you, which would make it easier to pick up baby to breastfeed. the pack and play wasn't horrible for that, but i still had to sit up in bed to pick the baby up, which for as many times as you nurse early on was a little annoying...

also...i don't know how long cosleepers are safe for..maybe someone else can speak to that..it seems like once they could sit up that there would be a risk of injury the same as a pack and play bassinet.


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## ~Shanna~ (Nov 17, 2005)

I was debating this exact same thing. DH and I have decided to go with the Pack N Play (baby hasn't arrived yet, so this is all theoretical







) for the reasons you said: cheaper, more versatile. We also noticed that, for our high bed, we'd have to adapt the co-sleeper with leg pegs to get it up to the height of our bed, and the word on the street is that they don't seem very sturdy. I've also heard complaints that the co-sleeper mattress is too firm for some babies, but others say it's not a problem at all. I'm sad to give up the idea of the co-sleeper being continous with our bed though


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## ecoteat (Mar 3, 2006)

Thanks for your input! But this makes me wonder about something else now...is dd (5.5mo and sitting up, but not rolling, 14.5lb) too big/old for something like this already? If she is, what other compromises are there between our bed and her crib? I don't think sidecarring her crib would work with our bedroom set-up.


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## KoalaMommy (Apr 7, 2004)

the thing with the pack N play vs co-sleeper, is that the pack n play is not very adjustable. You have 2 height settings. The side never comes down. It makes it a little harder to just roll over and reach for your baby. You might even have to actually get out of bed to reach down to get the baby with the pack n play.

I would say that a babe who is rolling over and pulling up is probably too old for the basinett feature, but I guess it depends on the baby's mobility level.

I know co-sleepers are very expensive. We got one of those old porta-cribs back from my youth. It is wooden, and it has 2 settings for the matress height, as well as adjustable legs. One side of it opens. So we attached it to our bed basinett fashion for a long time, and set it up more as a crib when dd was around 1. Of course, until she was around 1, she didn't actually sleep in it much, it was more of a convenient place for all her stuff in our room









Now we have a king size bed where we can all pile in.


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