An award-winning, eco-friendly, inexpensive cot, designed to suit all tastes Not massively sturdy, poor use of storage space under cot, fixed cot sidesInexpensive, easy to build, lightweight, and slimline, eco-friendly, two mattress heights, matching change table available When I was pregnant, I made my first excited trip to a nursery furniture store only to be massively shocked by the price. I can’t understand that you can buy a perfectly serviceable adult double bed frame for £150 but a cot for babies often comes with a price tag of more than double that! Bucking that worrying trend is the Ikea Sniglar cot. The Swedish retailer sells this beech-framed, entry-level baby bedlet for just £35. Teamed with a mid-range, styled-to-fit Ikea mattress, such as the Vyssa Skont, you have a simple and stylish nest for your baby for £75. Launched in 2008 the Sniglar, which complies with European safety standard EN 716-1, has been a bestseller at Ikea for a long time but it has changed slightly over the years.
In 2011 the superstore recalled it in the US, with newer models supplied with improvements to the metal rods, which fix the mattress base to the upright frame. Despite the overseas recall, the cot has been well-received in the UK and even won a Gold award for best cot in the Prima Magazine Baby awards. I am going to buy a mesh bumper to put around the cot, I’ve looked at the Airwrap Deluxe bumper, but at £39.99 it costs more than the cot itself! Still, you could do a lot worse than check out Ikea’s range of cot bedding, which includes Kompisar bumpers for £10. I looked high and low for unfussy cot bedding that I liked, and found it in the Vandring Skog quilt and pillowcase set at a ridiculously good £8. Until he’s a year old however, he’ll be in sleeping bags – and Ikea’s version cost from just £10 up. Of course we’ve all heard the adage ‘you get what you pay for’ and that’s true. Sniglar’s raw materials are certainly raw, making this a great ‘green’ option – the four panels consisting of cut, assembled and well-sanded beech wood bars and spindles, must certainly be cheap to source - but I prefer to think ‘simple’.
Unpainted, you can be sure you child wont be chewing on toxic dyes or chemical compounds such as VOCs which contain formaldehyde and are often found in MDF and the like. Also, its fuss-free, uncluttered style means it should suit in any room. How is the Sniglar to put together? As usual, the whole kit and caboodle came Ikea-style in a big wooden box. Armed with an allen key, a screwdriver which got minimal use, and a little wrench-thing, I set about building. I had one false start when I put the end on back to front ignoring holes required to adjust the height of the mattress, but all in all it took just an hour from start to finish. This was perfect because it meant it was completed in that all-important window between feeds. Can you take a side off to make it a co sleeper/opensided? The sides cannot be removed on this cot, the position of the mattress can be at the higher and the lower level. Athough I’m delighted with the higher mattress height I reckon the lower one, which we’ll use when baby can stand, could be a bit awkward because of the cot’s immovable sides.
I can see that it’s going to be difficult to tuck him in from above when he’s lying just a few inches off the floor Does the cot take up much space? No, which is a good thing because the baby’s nursery is still very much a work in progress, so my four-month-old (and his cot) will remain in the main bedroom for some time to come. Luckily I reckon that the dimensions of the Sniglar (80cm x 66cm x 124cm), with its ever-so-slim profile and neat frame – are as small as you can manage in a full-size cot, making it perfect for cramped flats or small spaces. Once baby Ru’s in in his own room however he’ll have plenty of space so we’ll also buy the Sniglar change table, at £25. To be honest, I wish Ikea did a full matching furniture range. I did love the look of the now defunct Leksvik series but it got discontinued long before bubs was born. Can you move the Sniglar around easliy? Yes, it’s super-lightweight – which is handy because if I need to get into the lesser-used part of the wardrobe its standing in front of, I’m going to have to pick it up!
How comfortable is the bedlet? Is it nice and comfortable, the mattress base itself is now made of a close-knit polyester mesh stretched over a sparse wooden frame, which I really like. This allows for maximum air-flow and shows the Sniglar putting safety first. Do be aware though that if you use a movement monitor such as the Angelcare you will have to get a plywood panel to fit between the mesh and the mattress to provide solid support for its pressure pad. Is it value for money? Yes, it certainly is. But as I said earlier, you get what you pay for. I noticed a couple of little knotty patches on the wooden cot spindles as I built it, so I gave them a quick sand to make them nice and smooth for exploring little hands and mouths! I’d also urge you to make sure all the metal fixings are tightened until they’re flush with the wood’s surface so little fingers don’t get nipped. Who is the Ikea Sniglar Cot best for? Cost-conscious parents will be the first to reach out for the Sniglar but anyone who appreciates unfussy design will be won over.
At this price, it would also be a great option for any grandparents’ spare room. IKEA recalls 64,000 VYSSA crib mattresses in Canada Gap between mattress and crib can be too large Posted: Jan 13, 2015 3:13 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 13, 2015 3:13 PM ET IKEA is recalling almost 64,000 VYSSA mattresses because the gap between them and the crib may be too large. A VINKA model of the mattress in question is shown. IKEA is recalling almost 64,000 VYSSA mattresses that were sold in Canada because they are too small and a child could get trapped in the gap between the mattress and the crib. Health Canada posted a voluntary recall notice about the mattresses on its website Tuesday, noting that "a gap between the mattress and the side or end of the crib that is greater than 3 centimetres poses an entrapment hazard for an infant." Health Canada advises anyone with a VYSSA mattress from IKEA to remove all bedding and fitted sheets from the product, then measure it and make sure the gap around the mattress is no more than three centimetres.
If it is, "consumers should immediately stop using the affected product and return it to any IKEA store for an exchange or a full refund," Health Canada says. IKEA says a gap of more than two fingers between the mattress and the edge of the crib is dangerous. Mattresses affected by the recall were made before May 4, 2014 and include the following model names: The mattresses were all manufactured in Mexico and sold between 2010 and the date of the recall notice. Time for a 'use it or lose it' rule for Canadian streaming rights, advocates say Wealthy Canadians exposed in KPMG offshore tax 'sham' Keystone XL would be exempt from needing U.S. steel, reports sayYellen sets the table for rate hike later this month Toronto's red-hot real estate market moves to the suburbs Huge annual price gains are the new normal in the Greater Toronto Area Snapchat owner's shares jump almost 50% Snap Inc. began its life as a public company on Thursday, a day after it priced its initial public offering of 200 million shares at $17 US each