We did it. We finally did it. We went to not one, but TWO baby stores on Saturday.
I won't lie, they were a little intimidating. But we were focused and had a plan: Look at glider rocker chairs and look at cribs. Both need to be ordered soon so that they'll delivered in time. We also wanted to see what the stores were like and get an idea of where we wanted to register.
Walking into this mega-store, located in a strip mall near a bunch of car dealerships, reminded me of walking into an IKEA. There was a maze of nurseries set up to showcase different crib brands and other furniture as well as baby bedding sets and other accessories.
Toward the back was a long line of glider rocker chairs, the first thing on our list of things to look at and make a decision on!
About half were
all-upholstered and about half were
part wood. We had decided earlier that we wanted an upholstered chair because they are more comfortable and also can be used later in another part of the house as a regular chair.
We had not decided on whether to buy just the chair or a chair and a matching ottoman, which usually costs another $200-300, when a sales associate showed us a better option. We could buy a chair that has a "kick-out" on the bottom. You can lean back and pull a lever hidden next to the seat cushion and a
foot rest pops out! Like a Lazy Boy. Now we're talking!
With this new bit of information, we went immediately to the
Little Castle chairs that I had planned to order. Several had kick-outs and they were comfy!
We also checked out the
Dutailier chairs, which had kick outs and reclined nearly horizontal, but they were priced at $1,000+ so we quickly stopped looking at them.
The third brand of upholstered chairs available at the store was new to me -
Best Chairs. Thankfully, I had brought my
Baby Bargains book with me, so I shamelessly whipped it out in the middle of the store and thumbed to the chapter on glider rocker chairs to read up on the brand. The chair had been given an "A" for quality, so this was a brand worth considering!
The Best Chairs had one model that was both comfy and had the kick-out but was priced at about $200-300 LESS than the Little Castle chairs.
We were wondering (out loud) why there was such a big price difference when a store manager wandered over. He said the Little Castle chairs are shipped by freight from California while the Best Chairs come from Indiana. He said the difference in shipping costs to the East Coast was about $200. Wow. A $200 price difference JUST due to shipping?!
We were already leaning toward the Best Chair model, due to its comfort, and that made the decision that much easier. Done. We looked at the color options and chose a pretty "chocolate" micro-fleece fabric. On to the next store!
This store is owned by the Bed, Bath & Beyond chain and it resembled the BBB stores: A dizzying array of merchandise stacked from floor to ceiling. We wandered around looking at cribs, baby bedding, cradles and other stuff. But we were pretty tired by then, so we signed up to get coupons in the mail and decided to come again on another day.
We saw several cribs at both stores that we liked. I know I said previously that I liked the
Graco Lauren crib, but we were told at Buy Buy Baby that they are no longer carrying that model because they consider its drop-down rails to be unsafe. Most of the current offering of cribs (like
Munire's Urban crib) are all solid wood with static rails. They feel more solid and seem safer, so I think we'll opt for one of those.
I'm off on Monday and think I'll head out for a second try at baby supply shopping! The stores should be less crowded. Hopefully, I'll nail down a crib that we want and figure out where to register and get that started!
