Disney Princess Toddler Bed: Great Purchase, Difficult Assembly

I'd always been told by other parents not to take a child out of their crib until you absolutely have to. Basically, you should take children out of cribs when they are climbing out of the crib and could fall and hurt themselves or they have simply outgrown it.

I finally broke down and decided it was time for my toddler to have a toddler bed. I had planned to purchase it for her third birthday. Since she was two, my daughter has gotten into the Disney Princess movies and is extremely tickled to have anything Disney Princess. So, of course, I stopped and looked at anything with the Disney Princess character licensing.

First stop: the Internet, where I prefer to do my shopping. The hassles of going in-store are something I always try to avoid, and I know there are plenty of people out there like me who don't relish the idea of a noisy, crowded store. Even if you don't make the purchase online, its a good rule of thumb to always research what a store has and their prices prior to making the trip there and wasting your time browsing from something you like. It's a similar concept to checking a store's paper so you know what you have in mind.

In the case of shopping for a toddler bed, however, the added cost of shipping simply didn't warrant purchasing her Disney Princess bed online. While there were many more styles and options to choose from online, most of the online stores (and I visited several) didn't offer free shipping and were priced very similar to regular stores. Bigger items like a toddler bed don't often qualify for free shipping, unfortunately. I also discovered that many of the Disney Princess toddler beds were 'not available' and 'out of stock' at the online stores.

I looked at every Disney Princess toddler bed I could and finally came across the Disney Princess Plastic Bed by Delta Children's Products at Toys R s for $49.95. Not a bad price for a toddler bed, considering all the ones over $100 or more, especially if you go with a wooden one. It was pink with Disney Princess decals in the 'Enchanted Seasons' line. I was hoping for something a little more 'Classic Disney Princess' in their regular outfits, but they decals were nice to. They go on the headboard and footboard. Like most toddler beds, they come with safety guardrails, which in this case are plastic, but quite sturdy. The mattress does not come with purchase. It uses a standard crib mattress, which is something you're likely to already have if you are upgrading from a crib to a toddler bed. It's recommended that the child be 18 months or older and has a weight limit of 50 pounds.

The pros: very cute, lightweight yet sturdy, doesn't take up much room, low to the ground and my daughter would absolutely love it. The cons: 'some assembly required' is an understatement for this bed. I don't know if all the Disney Princess toddler beds are like this, but it took several hours to assemble and ended up being crooked. None of the holes aligned quite right. The screws, nuts, and bolts *just nearly* align, but they don't. I had to have an electric drill with a screwdriver attachment to get many of them in. The instructions seemed simple and pretty easy to follow, but in practice, they were not clear on which bolt and screw to use. I'm fairly handy, and I also had a man, who is quite handy, help me assemble this, and it still took forever.

In the end, this plastic-and-metal Disney Princess toddler bed looks amazing and you can't really tell that it's crooked. It really is stable and comfortable for my daughter and instead of having issues with bedtime, now she's thrilled and excited to go to sleep in her 'bed girl' Disney princess bed.

Taking a while, the assembly portion of this toddler bed would make this the perfect bed. If I had known ahead of time how difficult the assembly would be, I would have paid the extra money at the store to have it assembled. Honestly, it is a great, darling toddler bed at a good price...aside from putting it together.