In essence, it's a three-sided box with a "shelf" halfway up where the baby lies. The whole thing is attached to a frame underneath that extends far under the mattress keeping it in place. It's quite secure but just for added strength we bolted it to the pallets that our bed sits on.
I did a lot of research on the toxicity of different types of wood and decided to use Poplar. Pretty much all of the basic wood types you would find at a lumber yard are perfectly safe, with the most common irritant being the dust produced from cutting and sanding. I'm also using Poplar for the crib, which is currently under construction. It's a nice, easy to find, and not too expensive hardwood.
A lot of cribs these days are made out of different types of plywood and even MDF, which contain all sorts of industrial glues and even formaldehyde, so I knew I wanted to avoid those at all cost.
The next consideration was how to finish the co-sleeper. I decided to make my own finish instead of worrying about paints and stains and any kind of hard finish. To make the finish I heated up mineral oil - which is used on cutting boards and wooden utensils and is essentially unscented baby oil - and added some fragrance-free beeswax until it melted. (I bought the beeswax at A.I. Root here in town. Did you know that Medina, OH is The Bee Capital of the World? Well, you do now.) Then you let it cool and you rub on the paste that results (below). It's completely food-safe and non-toxic.
My only worry in all of this is that Crystal's not going to want to give up her new bedside space. (She's currently using the co-sleeper as a side table and keeps her contacts, alarm clock, books, glasses, yarn, water bottle, tissues, hair ties, crocheting/knitting needles, and whatever else she manages to take to bed with her.)
-a.
4 comments:
What did you use as a mattress pad for this bed?
Hi! I used the leftover remnants of felt that I used for the sides. You could probably also use layered pieces of quilt batting. You can see a better photo of the mattress here:
http://www.yes-have-some.com/2010/02/co-sleeper.html
hope that helps!
-crystal
Why is it so deep (horizontally)? The back of the Culla Belly seemed half that far away from the bed.
@Joe S: You could technically make it however deep you want, newborns don't move that much in their sleep.
Ours is only 16" deep (maybe it appears wider in the pictures). I don't know the exact dimensions of the Culla Belly since I don't think it was ever actually produced.
We chose the dimensions based on the fact that we wanted our son to sleep in it for about 3 months. We measured my niece (who was a couple months old at the time) for size reference and 16" seemed like a reasonable size.
You can see a picture of our son as a newborn in the co-sleeper and there's definitely room in there, but he grew out of it at about 2 months old.
http://www.yes-have-some.com/2010/10/project-update-co-sleeper.html
Hope that helps!
-c.
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