hanging baby basket — silly or ingenious?
Yesterday on Decor8 I spotted this lovely hanging baby basket in a post about a Swedish store called Funktion Alley. I remember seeing similar designs when I visited Malmo & Copenhagen a few years and thinking they were ingenious. This Knoppa Bady Cradle is suspended by a pully system, so they’re easy to lower and rise up, and can be put within an arms length of parents’ bed for easy rocking and reach. It also folds down flat and can work as a travel cradle. Am I just being seduced by good design and lure of a small space solution? Would anybody really put their little one in those things? Can someone from Sweden speak up and let us know how they work in real life? — Angela M.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:22 am
why not? Not much different than those bouncy seats.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I thought they stopped selling the bouncy seats
October 26th, 2007 at 10:43 am
It would work for a few months, sure.
But babies grow quite quickly. In almost no time, your baby will begin to roll over and to sit up. Soon, baby will be agile enough to catapult out of the hanging basket and onto the floor, but not sensible enough to avoid this unhappy fate.
But, it’s adorable, true. And for a few months, it would be the coolest baby cradle ever!
October 26th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I second what DJ says - I see a stunning escape in the works from this cradle. I also get a rock-a-bye-baby vibe from it. Cute, but creepy. We had very little space when our daughter was born, and we used a port-a-crib playpen thingy with the pop-in bassinet and changing table. Graco, I think. Not exactly high design, but very functional. It also folded up for travel or for hiding away. It also cleaned up easily using a garden hose or the shower. I was very grateful for this after the first bout with a stomach virus.
October 26th, 2007 at 11:32 am
LeeAnn — if you could find the link to your Graco thing online I would love to see! Did it work okay for a newborn?
October 26th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Angela,
Most all of the Graco pack’n'plays now come with a bassinet attachment perfect for those first couple of weeks/months.
I agree with the cool idea for the bassinet but not very practical. Although I’d hope that people who had that kind of money to spend on a bassinet were intelligent enough not to let their baby sleep in it if they can sit up by themselves…May be too much to hope…
October 26th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Angela,
Csilla hit upon the name - Graco pack’n'play. It was perfect for my daughter when she was a newborn. I checked into co-sleepers, but I liked the bassinet attachment better. It put her just about bed-level and the sides were mesh, so I could see in. As she got older, she slept in it without the bassinet. Her nursery was upstairs, so it was more convenient to let her nap in the pack’n'play downstairs.
Here is a Target link for what seems to be the new-fangled version of the one I had 5 years ago. Sorry - I’m technologically inept and can’t provide a snazzier link.
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=sc_pgc_r_12_0_1038664/601-5943114-4486504?ie=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B000BMJ1CA
October 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I used the amby baby hammock which is similar to the one above but more hammock like. It was THE. BEST. EVER. lasted for 2 years of continual use by the baby AND he older brother and now my sister is using it.
So AWESOME!!
October 27th, 2007 at 2:59 am
the knoppa is definitely ingenious if you’re short of room and that’s a cool shop. the scandinavians are streets ahead when it comes to quality design for kids and for grown ups. it’s always refreshing to see that people are still thinking.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I also swear by the Amby Baby for my first child. His siblings, however, are having none of it, so I’d caution against investing in a hammock until you’re sure that your child will be happy in it.
Hammocks are great when you’re knackered and have only enough energy to feebly rock the baby to sleep with your big toe.
October 27th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
i say this pack n play is the sorta of thing baby showers are for !!!!
October 30th, 2007 at 5:01 am
[...] 1. Baby hammocks can work! As Amy wrote: “I used the Amby baby hammock which is similar to the one above but more hammock like. It was THE. BEST. EVER. Lasted for 2 years of continual use by the baby AND he older brother and now my sister is using it. So AWESOME!!” See more about swinging baby baskets here. [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 8:34 am
I would b tempted to put a big mattress under it for safety, but that would just be to ease my mind. It’s obviously safe for a newborn who can’t rock the boat, but I would still be jumpy.
December 6th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
This is terriffic for the time when your baby is really little and wakes up many times a night and needs to be breast fed. We hung a basket like this over our bed between ourselves and our baby hardly had a chance to wake up before I could reach him and feed him, and since he didn’t have the time to wake up proberly he fall asleep within minutes again, and I could rock him beeing half asleep myself. But it’s only good for young babys…but isn’t that when you have most of your sleepless mights?!
March 12th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
My parents used something very similar when I was an infant, and I survived the experience. And if the pictures don’t lie, I enjoyed it immensely. It was a little larger though, so it had room to grow.