We are in the home stretch — 13 days or less to go — and I need to buy a few more things for the divine Miss Lola before her arrival. I’m hoping you lovely ladies can help me and weigh in on a few things based on your own parenting experiences.
First, I need to purchase a swing. Our swing was a POS. It was a Graco Silhouette. It was awful, it never worked and I spend countless hours on the phone (time that I did not have) with Graco’s parent company. Nine times they shipped us out new parts — some never got here, some were lost in the mail, some were the wrong part — each time the parts took several weeks to arrive. Finally, when the twins were 7 months old, I lost it on the phone with a Graco representative and they took our swing back and refunded our money. The comical part is two months after we shipped the swing back to them a box of Graco swing parts arrived at our door. It was a replacement motor that had been ordered months prior. Horrible.
I have heard wonderful things about the Snuggabunny and Snuggy Lamb (is that what it’s even called?) swing. But I think they are atrocious looking. I’m sorry if you love them. And they are probably wonderful swings. And if I would have chosen a swing based on its reviews and not how well it matched my living room before we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But alas, here we are. So…I can’t do the lamb or the bunny. I just can’t. At least not if I don’t have to.
So my question is this — is the Snuggy Monkey or any of the other Cradle n’ Swing swings from Fisher-Price just as good as the bunny or the lamb? Or are those the only two swings that rock it out, meaning I just have to suck up the floppy ears and the mosquito net and buy the damn thing?
Second thing I need to figure out is carrying this kid around with the twins by myself. Mostly this is to get the twins into and out from their preschool class. For longer errands or more lengthy solo trips out, I plan on wearing the baby and strapping the twins into a stroller. I purchased the Baby Jogger City Select when we conceived Lola because it had the ability to add an infant seat adapter and a glider board attachment, making it something I could use for all three kids. And we’ve amassed a few double strollers to choose from if I’m wearing the baby.
For preschool comings and goings it is only necessary that the baby be strapped into something (preferably a stroller so that I don’t have to take her out of her car seat in the winter months) and that that something is a frame that the twins can hold onto so that I can walk all three into the building safely.
I don’t know whether to buy the car seat adapter for the City Select (which I’ve heard mixed reviews on) and schlep out the 28 pound stroller frame for a 5 minute walk into preschool.
Or if I should just purchase a single snap n’ go (which weighs 12 pounds) and use that for preschool drop offs and quick errands instead.
