Can You Help Me Find a Great Nursing Chair That I Will Actually Want to Keep?
I’m putting together my first nursery and need a nursing chair. I want something really comfortable, but also that I won’t mind keeping for a long time. They are expensive!
Emma
Dear Emma,
Nursery furniture is a big challenge. I will come back to all of it in the future as it can be a big first expense and not something that’s very useful for the rest of your child’s life, but I want to give a great recommendation for THE chair we found. It was awesome and is still in use, even though Ursula is fourteen.
Looking around the field, you might find yourself inevitably drawn to a real nursing chair or “glider” that has the right rocking motion, foot rest and nice soft padding to get your through those first long days and nights, but most of which are HEINOUSLY ugly, or expensive, or both. These are chairs that you may feel you have to get, but you know that somewhere in your head you’re already planning on getting rid of it as soon as possible, so the purchase has mixed feelings. Maybe your parents-in-law will buy it for you?
But then you pivot and say, “to heck with that! I’ll spend the money on a cool chair I love that has some rocking to it and call it a day!” And so you go looking at nicely designed rockers of many kinds, and you fall in love with an Eames rocker and consider just loading it up with sheepskins and you feel much chic-er and better already.
But when you go to sleep that night you can’t quite believe that you’ll really be comfortable sitting in it – or having others sit in it – for hours each day and you don’t want to really die on the cross of design martyrdom, so you throw away the thought by the time you get to breakfast.
Sound familiar?
As both a practical person and a design snob, I went through all those emotions and Ursula’s mother did too, and the conflict didn’t get any easier until I finally found a chair, that at first I discounted, but then realized it was the perfect compromise. It was a soft upholstered rocker that looked pretty cool, but was actually non-descript enough to fit in and look like a regular old lounge chair: The Nurseryworks Sleepytime Rocker. Fourteen years later- microfiber and all – it’s still going strong! And it’s more affordable than back in 2006.
Sound like a pretty definitive endorsement? It is, but if it’s not QUITE your style, my advice is to follow this lead and look for something very similar, with a simple, upholstered body that will be nice to sit in and read for years afterwards, AND which you won’t mind looking at. This one did if for me.