Baby Bananza Gifts and Bedding Blog

A new baby is expensive, so new parents are bargain hunters, looking for the best prices on baby boy and baby girl crib sets. As a new parent you might be tempted to work through relatives and scrounge garage sales to find used cribs and baby beds. Unfortunately, this is one area where shopping used can’t help you, because the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. To keep your baby safe, buy new. Here are four reasons why you should always choose new baby bassinets and baby beds.

Baby Bedding Safety Standards Change Frequently

Baby bedding standards are regularly revised as government and consumer advocacy groups test hundreds of products. http://www.cpsc.gov/ has many, many recalls related to baby beds and cribs. We ensure our inventory is compliance with the latest standards and that no product is under recall. You can’t say the same thing about a crib you find through the want ads. Regulations change in everything from the allowed distance between slats to the paint and mattress material. Buy new to avoid these problems.

Mattress Fitting Matters

One of the most important safety considerations for a crib or baby bed is that its mattress has a tight, secure fit – and this is also one of the first things to go after prolonged use. Mattresses deform, or the system used to secure them breaks. Mattresses go missing and people replace them with ones that don’t fit properly. A poor mattress fit can trap a baby or cause falls once the baby starts to experiment with standing up. Buy a new set with a tightly fitted firm mattress.

Safety Standards Apply to New Sets

While many cribs can last through multiple births they are not tested to hold up for an unlimited length of time. Furthermore, testing doesn’t take into account stresses from reassembly and other occasional stresses. This means that even a crib built to current standards may be too worn out to be safe for your next child. Your choice is to either inspect any used crib according to rigorous safety standards or just to buy a new one.

Used Sets Have Hygiene Risks

Everyone knows babies are messy. Even the most diligent parents can’t prevent some invisible contamination. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that this can have a more serious effect on your baby’s health then previously thought. Certain byproducts of baby messes such as fungal spores have been known to react with mattress chemicals, producing toxins. If you buy used, chances are there will be some contamination, making these even more of a hazard.

In short, if you’re buying a crib or bed for your baby, the safe answer is simple: buy new.

Do baby showers have a season? Officially, no, but more babies tend to be born in the summer. The fact is that the unofficial season for baby showers and birth celebrations is here, and if you know any expecting families, chances are that it’s time to start thinking about baby gift sets.

We have a wide variety of baby presents and baby baptism gifts (for later, since the new baby’s christening won’t be far off either). Here are four common gift set ideas for newborns you’ll either be seeing soon, or have already had a chance to meet.

Memory and Hair Lock Gift Sets

A newborn is one of the most important events in any family’s life, but it’s also one of the busiest times, leaving parents at a loss when it comes to remembering to record their child’s early life. These gift sets give them a place to put their baby’s first lock of hair, photographs and later on, baby teeth.

Baby Rattles

Rattles are icons of babyhood. Beyond that, they’re one of the first toys any child learns to enjoy. We have gift sets that feature high quality rattles, either by themselves or with stuffed animals. Rattles aren’t just for the baby, either; high end decorative models serve as symbols of the transition to parenthood. These make for excellent keepsake baby gifts.

Stuffed Animals

Many of our sets feature high quality stuffed animals. Babies love them! On the other hand, stuffed animals often feel kind of incomplete by themselves, which is why we offer them as parts of complete gift sets with matching baskets and other elements.

Practical Gifts

These include blankets, hampers and laundry bags: items that help parents with the everyday business of taking care of their babies. Our gift sets combine these with other presents and also ensure that they’re pretty enough to fit in a well-designed nursery. Mismatched presents are often the bane of new parents. This way, you can provide presents that don’t force new moms and dads to deal with ugly looking clutter.

What should you look out for in baby crib sets? Are there special guidelines for cribs and baby bassinets? Let’s look at four basic things to look out for when you’re purchasing virtually any kind of baby bed, including a bassinet or larger crib.

Firm Mattresses

Always pick a bed with a firm mattress as this is the safest option for the baby. Soft mattresses may seem more comfortable to you, but your baby isn’t going to feel the same way. Firm mattresses are proven to reduce the rate of SIDS, so it’s always in your best interest to choose one.

Fitted Mattresses

Your mattress should be fitted to the bad and tightly secured so that it can’t shift or create any gaps between it and the rest of the bassinet or crib. A baby can get caught in these gaps, making them dangerous. Different beds will have different systems for securing a mattress in place. Make sure these aren’t damaged and that you’re using them as instructed.

Low Center of Gravity

The safest bassinets and beds have a low center of gravity, making it difficult for them to tip. Even though your nursery set may be too heavy for the baby to move it only takes a moment of clumsiness for a larger adult to accidentally push it. Generally, the older the baby, the lower the center of gravity should be. As they get larger, babies and toddlers are capable of generating a surprising amount of momentum.

New Beds and Cribs Only

CPSA safety guidelines generally apply to new items only. Many cribs and bassinets are designed to safely hold your baby or toddler for as long as he or she needs it, but not if you pick it up at a garage sale where it’s already gone through one or two children. To avoid accidents it’s always a good idea to buy cribs and bassinets new, never used, and to avoid reusing sets as you have more children.

At Baby Bananza, all of our baby beds and cribs fit the above criteria according to CPSA safety standards. Contact us to order a baby bed or ask about a particular item.

This month at Baby Bananza we have a whole bunch of new baby bassinets for sale. Clicking on the “baby bassinets” link will take you to our standard selection, but if you go to our home page you can scroll down to see our newest baby bassinets right there. These include classic round bassinets like the Elite Oval. This model comes with a skirt, a custom fitted foam mattress pad that conforms to the latest safety regulations and caster wheels that make it easy to move. The bassinet is height adjustable, so tall and short parents alike can easily help their baby in and out of the bassinet.

Take a look at our Burlington Bassinet Combo as well. With the wheels down it’s a traditional bassinet, easily moved from place to place. With the wheels up it can act as a rocking cradle. If your baby likes to be rocked to sleep this can be an excellent, good looking and money saver product.

Read our article about buying a baby bassinet for a guide to what to look for in any baby bassinet. All of our bassinets conform to consumer product safety guidelines. Also, read about why baby bassinets are great gifts.

Beyond baby bassinets our line of infant bedding sets is as extensive as ever and includes top designers like Banana Fish, Glenna Jean, and Picci. Remember that we have separate categories for baby boy nursery bedding and baby girl nursery bedding. If you need any help deciding on the right set, check out our articles on baby boy and baby girl bedding.

No matter what kind baby bassinet or baby nursery bedding set you’re looking for we’re likely to have what you want. Remember, if you have any questions about a particular item or need help placing an order just contact us at Baby Bananza and we’ll be happy to help!

Back in March we posted five color suggestions for Baby Boy Nursery Bedding. This month, let’s follow it up with similar suggestions for Baby Girl Nursery Bedding. This time we’ve included the classic color, pink, but the point of this article is actually to show you that pink is by no means the only choice you have. Here then, are suggested options for your little girl’s infant bedding set.

Beige: Parents are often afraid of beige because they’re worried it will look dingy, but that isn’t true – only dingy things really look dingy. Beige is an excellent earth tone accent for a bright infant girl’s room. A darker brown matches more vibrant colors and tend to be favored for boys, but as girls’ infant bedding sets and clothing are usually a bit lighter or more delicate you want to avoid colors that absorb too much light and overwhelm those accessories.

Blue: Blue just for boys? Certainly not! In fact, the way blue makes rooms look big and cool makes it a great choice for both infant boys and girls. For little girls you’ll probably want to stay closer to classic, light “baby blue,” since this tends to match with other baby girl furniture and accessories.

Cream: Like beige, cream is a gentle, light color that can either stand on its own or as a contrasting to something bolder, to soften it enough to be suitable for a baby girls’ nursery bedding. Cream is also a practical alternative to white, in that it has white’s advantage of creating luminous interiors but doesn’t leave hard reflections. Parents also find cream less intimidating to clean. Finally, color scheme transitioning through cream, to a very light yellow can provide a more energetic, sunny feel without being as harsh as a full on lemon color.

Lime: Dark green is a popular baby boy nursery bedding theme and you can use it for little girls too, but again, the limitation isn’t really whether the baby is a boy or girl, but whether the décor matches clothing, toys, baby keepsake gifts and other girls’ accessories. Lime is a bright alternative and unlike its lemon and orange counterparts is a citrus color that doesn’t overwhelm the room. Still, you have to be careful with lime. Keep it as an accent with white or other bright colors.

Pink: Pink is the traditional baby girl nursery bedding color, and is still popular with all Designer Crib Bedding lines. The difference nowadays is that pink is used as an accent as well as a solid dominant color, and comes in a bunch of new shades, from bubblegum to almost red. Pink goes with most baby girl accessories and is light and pleasant – good reasons why it’s still popular, though these days, hardly your only choice.

A baby baptism is a unique event. Your baby (or a baby born to friends or relatives) probably won’t remember the occasion, so it’s up to you to make it an occasion that is not only memorable to the parents, but includes gifts and mementos that you can show to the child when he or she is older. Baby keepsake gifts like this show the child the love that people felt for him or her from the moment she was born and brought into the community. If you pick the right baby baptism gifts you’ll give the occasion a significance that will last through the child’s entire life. How do you pick the right christening presents? Here are three tips to help you.

Buy the Baby’s Christening Gown

Even though it might only be worn a few times, a baby baptism gown is an important part of the baptism for many reasons. This is what the baby will be wearing in baptism photos. The gown itself is a keepsake you can keep in good condition to either frame as a memento or pass on to the baby when he or she grows up. In these uncertain economic times, parents need to save money, but don’t want to lose the charm of a traditional baptism. If the baby belongs to a friend or relative, consider offering to purchase it as a gift. Make contact with the parents’ friends and family and make it a collective purchase. Just make sure to clear it with the parents first so that they don’t accidentally buy one by themselves.

Get Baby Baptism Gifts That Record the Occasion

A christening present marks the baptism in a lasting fashion that you can keep in his or her room, display in your home and pass along once the child has grown up. If you can, make sure to take plenty of pictures before, during and after the occasion. These work hand in hand with some of the best choices for baptism gifts. Baptism picture frames hold these photographs.

Another option is to purchase gifts that can actually be a part of the ceremony. The specifics depend on the denomination. Appropriate gifts include a cross and rosary. Our baby baptism gifts include these along with a display box to preserve them for when your child grows up.

Get Practical Presents Such as Baby Bedding

Designer baby bedding can make an excellent practical addition to the gift selection. By the time a baby’s baptism comes around many families still don’t have the furniture they need, or are relying on hand me downs that barely do the job, but don’t do any favors for the look of the household. Parents will appreciate stylish baby boy or baby girl nursery bedding. This is also a great gift to purchase in a group, after taking a collection from friends and family.

Baby Bananza now has an expanded range of bassinets for your newborn, or as newborn baby gifts for new parents. Baby bassinets are appealing presents on many levels. They fit a traditional style of décor, but they don’t dominate a room so thoroughly as to force you to make everything else match. Our bassinets come in a variety of baby boy, baby girl and neutral colors.

One key consideration when you want to match a baby bassinet to your household style is your choice of bassinet skirt and a matching infant bedding set. If you get a bassinet with a skirt that generally matches a traditional design. It goes well with antiques. Using a bare bassinet is usually more suited to the modern style. If you’re not sure what you want, go with the skirt; you can always take it off. If you don’t care for the color, it’s possible to switch it or supplement it with bedding in a complimentary color.

Modern baby bassinets are also excellent practical pieces of furniture. Many of our bassinets have sturdy wheels. Leave them down, and you can gentle rock the bassinet by hand or wheel it from room to room. Put the wheels up, and you can convert it into a cradle. They also feature storage baskets that can be used to store diapers and other supplies under the bassinet or anywhere else.

You should always aim for a high quality baby bassinet that’s safe and sturdy. If you opt for quality the bassinet should pay for itself several times over by being convenient and reliable. You can even pass it on to other parents or even store it as a keepsake baby gift for when your children are older.

Remember, though, that a bassinet is not a full time substitute for a large crib or full featured baby furniture set. Your baby will outgrow the baby bassinet and get more mobile. Enjoy the advantages of a bassinet while they’re around, and see how they fit into other baby girl and baby boy nursery bedding sets and furniture.

Blue for boys! That’s the classic recommendation for baby boy nursery bedding and other décor, but the truth is that there are plenty of other colors that also make excellent choices for your baby’s bedding. Each color suggests a different set of themes. This can really spark ideas, especially since thanks to blue’s extreme popularity a few themes (like the underwater concept) are a bit overdone. So here are five great colors to get you started.

Brown: Many parents are suspicious of brown and earth tones out of a fear that it will make the baby’s room look dark and a bit grubby, but you need this color if you’re going for a rustic or antique theme. This matches the wood of your furniture and can be used to define the shape of a room by employing contrast with cream, yellow or orange. The brighter colors flow around the brown and add emphasis to the places they cover.

Green: Like brown, green is often avoided for the wrong reasons – in this case, a fear that it will make the baby look unhealthy. This will only happen if you choose the wrong shade to go with the nursery’s lighting. Lime is great in bright natural light, for example, but doesn’t always work well with standard tinted electric lighting. As an alternative, consider a darker green. This is a great inspiration for a forest inspired design, complete with accessories in natural wood, toy horses and more.

Red: Red is a fantastic color for baby boys and suggests lots of themes: sports, racing, the circus and more. Don’t overdo it with red; a vibrant all-red room quickly loses its charm unless there are contrasting colors to provide a bit of a break from the energetic, powerful associations of the color. Red and white go together well. Here’s a secret: You can break the gender rules a bit and use a bit of “light red” (what you might call “pink” if this was baby girl nursery bedding) to soften things a bit.

White: White is one color that many new parents wouldn’t dare use for nursery bedding. While fears that a baby will leave regular messes on white material are well founded, there are plenty of ways to incorporate it so that these messes are much less likely. Get vertical surfaces, accessories that wipe away and hanging décor in white, and make it a secondary color or part of a pattern in the bedding itself. White is a great “blank slate” that accommodates almost any design idea.

Yellow: Sunny, warm yellow is another color that goes best with natural light (or an artificial, full spectrum alternative). Yellow is fantastic because it matches lots of play accessories like toys and mobiles. Yellow is also very accommodating to other primary colors. Red, blue and green can all find a home. For bedding, pull back on the brightness a little and use it in a pattern or a very light shade. Yellow is great for playroom and rustic (sunrise) themes.

Easter is coming on April 12^th this year, or April 19^th for families that observe Eastern Orthodox traditions. Every denomination, culture and observant family has its own, unique Easter traditions. Things like the Easter egg hunt are well known, but there are less common traditions that are not only just as enjoyable, but give you a chance to get your baby involved as well. Easter is a great time to get the baby bonnet you’ve always wanted to buy for your little one because bonnets and Easter have a connection going back hundreds of years.

In the past, when bonnets were standard dress for adult women as well as babies and children, Easter was the traditional day to switch to the spring bonnet. Back then, baby and adult bonnets came in all manner of shapes, sizes and materials. While some of these styles were governed by the fashions of the time, other types of bonnets were more practical. During the winter, women and children both wore bonnets made of heavy material, sometimes stiffened with woven straw or whalebone to keep the outside suspended away from the head. This prevented snow or cold rain from soaking through.

While the wealthy kept different bonnets for various occasions, most women only had a few: bonnets that they wore on the farm and in the city. Easter meant it was time to give the well-worn winter bonnet a rest, and change into a light bonnet suitable for spring and summer. Where the church was the center of community life, the new spring bonnet was definitely part of a woman or baby’s “Sunday best,” and got worn to Easter services.

The change in season also made the bonnet a way to celebrate the return of Spring. New bonnets were decorated with floral designs or actual flowers to ring in the return of the growing season. Many communities still celebrate this tradition. The most famous example is New York’s Easter Parade, where thousands of women and children (and even a few men) where festive bonnets.

You can participate in this tradition by picking one of our beautiful baby bonnets. These are not only great accessories in of themselves, but they can act as a base for arts and crafts, including flower decorations and bright dyes.

Banana Fish is one of our most popular designer crib bedding brands. Banana Fish (or Bananafish) manufactures modern crib sets that fit well with contemporary interior designs. This is great for new parents, who often have to contend with a baby room that just doesn’t fit the rest of the house’s design.

You might think this isn’t important, but the fact is that you can’t just hide your baby’s room away. In fact, it’s going to be one of the most visible parts of the house because you’ll usually keep the door open to maintain constant access to your baby and anything he or she might need. Plus, as experienced parents know, items from your baby’s room tend to “wander” to other locations in the house, so that crib, bassinet or other bedding set element will end up in your living room.

The Banana Fish brand has been featured in several popular magazines, including OK Magazine (featuring Brooke Shields choosing the MiGi line for her baby), American Baby and Kids Today. Baby Bananza is proud to sell this brand at competitive prices.

Banana Fish bedding uses an upscale, textile oriented design with a clean, modern, functional look. The brand is diverse. For instance, the All You Need is Love set has a “retro-modern” feel, while the Flora Baby Girl bedding set is a new take on classic flower designs. Moda is one of the sets that most represents the company’s design philosophy, with bold browns and citrus green striping that not only looks attractive in its own right, but compliments modern adult décor. The company also offers general infant bedding sets: the Baby Boy nursery bedding and Baby Girl nursery bedding sets.

Banana Fish is only one of the designer crib bedding sets we offer. Baby Bananza offers brands to suit almost every parent’s taste in both classic and modern styles. Shop for Banana Fish, Glenna Jean, Bebe Chic and other brands online at http://www.babybabanza.com. We also offer baby bassinets, clothing accessories, baby baptism gifts and more at our comprehensive webstore.