Thumbs down for the Ready Bed! (In The Night Garden My First Ready Bed)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	In The Night Garden My First Ready Bed
Date:	24/07/09 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very attractive, good sized roomy storage bag, inflates and deflates quickly and easily

Disadvantages: Caused upset for my granddaughter, very enclosed once inflated, not terribly comfortable

After reading lots of online reviews about this product I have come to the conclusion that my two year old granddaughter is the only child in the country who hates this Ready Bed, and me or her mum are not thrilled with the over priced air bed either!

Visually the Ready Bed looks fantastic. It's a soothing pale turquoise colour and features all of her favourite In The Night Garden characters, beautifully rendered and showing Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy dancing on the 'quilt' while the Tombliboos look on from the pillow. When my granddaughter first saw it she cooed in delight and was so excited when I explained to her that this was her new bed - that is until we actually tried to get her into what is now known as 'that thing' in our family.

The problem is that it's basically an inflatable sleeping bag, you pump up the base of the bed and the cover is attached to this base. From a tiny baby my granddaughter has hated being covered up so when she realised she was going to be so completely enclosed she panicked. The cover is fairly loose but it has tightened somewhat as the sides of the bed have inflated and my granddaughter didn't like not having the option of pushing the blankets down to keep herself comfortable - and I can't say I blame her for that really.

It's a good size for the recommended age (which is from 24 months) and looking at it I'd say that children much older than this will still get the use out of the bed, although I don't know whether you'd endear yourself trying to put a seven year old boy into an In The Night Garden bed!

We were mean and made her sleep in the bed for three nights, after all it had cost £35 and I wanted to try and coax her into it if possible. We began with letting her sleep on top of the cover but even then she wasn't comfortable in the bed, she cried herself to sleep that night and had an unusually restless night waking for bottles whereas she will usually sleep through.

The second night her dad took charge. He has a no nonsense attitude to parenting and was convinced that a few stern words would do the trick, so we deflated the Ready Bed for him to take it back home where he planned to put it up in my granddaughter's bedroom next to her proper bed. Well, he tells me she was back in her own bed after two hours of tears and tantrums had caused him to fear my granddaughter was going to have a fit in her panic - and this reinforced my belief that my granddaughter held a complete dislike to the Ready Bed and nothing was going to get her to sleep in it.

We actually had a breakthrough the third time it was used. We went on a short break in Wales and took the Ready Bed along as the hotel would only provide a cot in our family room. When my granddaughter was faced with the choice of a 'baby's' cot or the Ready Bed she grudgingly sat on the bed. Mind you, she was asleep by the time we laid her in it and woke very early so even unconscious she was aware she had been put in 'that thing'.

I suppose the purpose of this review is to let you know that not all children will love this Ready Bed, however wonderful it looks. Before buying it I read numerous reviews on the product and there are very few consumers who, like me, don't like the Ready Bed at all. It's a good idea but the design needs looking at in my opinion. Of course we don't want our little ones to fall on the floor but there is really no need for such bulky sides on the bed, it makes the bed seem very enclosed and if I were a toddler I certainly wouldn't want those next to my face. The suffocating effect is made worse by the fact that the bed is fairly narrow so I can imagine how claustrophobic it must seem to most toddlers who are already in normal sized junior beds.

I really, really don't like the fact that the cover is attached to the bed. It strikes me as a rather dangerous design for children of two years old as they still wriggle around in their sleep and the cover is tight enough to be awkward for them to get themselves out if they were to slip under the cover and become disorientated. Perhaps that is just me being a little overprotective but it does seem very closed in for such a small child.

The covers on the bed are machine washable and now it's listed on Ebay I have taken the covers off and washed them and can report it is a quick and easy job to perform. The covers washed well on a fairly cool wash and dried in shape making it easy to slip back onto the Ready Bed.

The Ready Bed inflates and deflates quickly with my normal airbed pump, there wasn't one included with my Ready Bed although I'm sure I've read somewhere that the package includes a pump so perhaps mine was just missing. I'd check before buying one if you don't already own a pump as if you have to buy one this will bump up the cost by around £6 - £8. Also the Ready Bed comes with a lovely carry bag for storage, I was impressed with how roomy the bag was as I was able to put the bed away with no struggling at all - unlike the recent sleeping bag carrier I bought recently which requires to roll my sleeping bag into such a tight sausage shape that I simply cannot use it!

But still, even with these good points it still doesn't make this a good product in my opinion. After all, if my granddaughter dislikes it so much that she refuses to sleep in it then what else can I do but dislike it myself?

Summary: Brilliant for some children, although obviously this Ready Bed will not suit every child.