Please Tell Me Why You Love Your Glider/rocker

We got this one from costco in tan
http://www.costco.com/Browse/ProductSet.aspx?Prodid=11196...=
It's very comfortable, cleans up easily, big enough for my son and very pregnant me to sit on together, and looks nice enough that we can use it in another room when we're done having kids.

Crate and Barrel has the absolute best rocker called the Bayside Swivel Glider ($999). I did so much research before I found this perfect specimen! It is so comfy, a neutral color (or you can pick out a fabric), very padded and the slipcovers come off easily for washing. I can still hold my baby and my 2 year old in the chair with my 4 year old perched on the big arm for a family book. Made my friends get it as well and we all LOVE it.

I guess I am going against the fold here. I shopped around for a glider or rocker after my first was born and I realized that I needed something comfortable to nurse her in. My problem was that the gliders all need ottomans and I thought they took up too much space that way. Sure with the La-Z-Boy I need room to put out the footrest if I want it, but to be honest I didn't use it very much. I use it more now that my daught is 2 because she thinks it is cool. I mostly used my nursing stool under it when I was nursing and after that I just sat in the chair and rocked with my daughter. The La-Z-Boy that we chose was one of the smaller La-Z-Boy chairs (and one of the less expensive as well) and I love it. In fact although my daughter is excited about being a big sister this spring and has already given up the crib and high chair for the new baby, she refuses to give up the La-Z-Boy in her room and I am now planning on going out and buying a second for the new baby.

Good Luck,
D.

I have a glider with a ottoman that my family got from Miejers. It is great. I have used it with three babies now. I can nurse in it comfortably. It also has a slight reclining position that locks and is great when I'm holding a little one that has a boogie nose and can't sleep.

I can sleep sitting up like a champ.

We have a glider/rocker. No one uses it for anything now that our youngest is 21 months old. I only ever used it as a place to sit and nurse at night in baby's room. There were lots of times when baby would fall asleep and I would think "I wish this were a big comfy recliner and we could both just stay here in the chair and go to sleep" but I never wanted to buy what I considered to be a big, ugly piece of furniture. The gliders are smaller than the lazy boys, so they are a little more versatile. Good luck!

Hi Michelle,

I have the fully upholstered Dutalier glider & ottoman. You must have an ottoman or built-in foot rest! You'll be uncomfortable nursing if you don't. I bought my glider before the recliner was added to the design. I wish I'd had the recliner b/c there are A LOT of nights when you'll end up falling asleep in the chair. I like that my chair was fully upholstered (opposed to the open wooden arm style) b/c there were times I needed to rest a book, toy, etc., next to my leg and didn't want it to slip to the floor. Make sure you get an easily washable material. The microfiber suede worked well for me. A wet washcloth & all spots are gone!

Hi Michelle,

I still love my glider with an ottoman and my twins are now seven! Here are my some reasons why.....

1. It's a neutral color so it now blends in with our decor in our 4th bedroom which we use as a rec. room.

2. It reclines! When I bought mine, many styles did not do this, but maybe they all do now.

3. It has very padded arm rests for me to rest my elbows. The padding also runs down the side so the side of your body does not feel the wooden vertical railings. And the padding is comfortable on my "bottom" and the padding is still comfy.

4. It is a bit larger than the average recliner so I could rock and hold both of my babies on it.

5. My kids loved being on it with me while we talked, sang or calmed down for a nap or sleep. The three of us used it together until they were about three yrs. old. After that we ran out of space. Now my kids use it while they read to themselves.

I bought it at Babies R Us. It was a mid-range price. The brand is Dutailier.

I hope this helps you some! J.

I could not make without my glider rocker plus ottoman. Mine also is a swival which came in handy when exiting the chair. I also used the swival to turn and look out the window while nursing or coddling my babies.

We purchased ours from Value City Furniture 6 years ago and it's still in perfect condition. It was a lot less expensive than the ones at Babies R Us. It also has a nice wide bottom too. Some can be narrow so I would go and sit in it before purchasing. It needs to be roomy to fit the bobby pillow and other climbing little ones.

I can't imagine what I would have done or what I would do now without my glider-ottoman! The ottoman can be stationery or rock with you. Both the chair and ottoman are very well padded and comfortable. It also has a recline feature that has also come in handy. I used it initially to rock my kids, but now that they are 4 and 5, we all still use it as another chair for my bedroom, as well as the occasional time when they climb on my lap and cuddle asking to be rocked!

We looked at a ton of rocker/gliders and had actually hoped to make a La z Boy work out because we thought the prices were so much lower. In the end, we splurged on a Dutalier, upholstered glider, and I'm so glad we did.

We noticed that La Z Boy was designed to sink into - nice when you are watching TV, but it was actually harder to get in and out of. It was bulkier so you will need a bigger space for it. And, you are very limited on style/option/fabric colors for the lower-priced La Z Boys so the price savings may not be as big as you think.

Have you heard of a brand called Best Chair? They are much more reasonable that Dutalier, and they have great fabric options and designs. My husband was a little persnickety about the comfort of each chair so we bought the one he was most comfortable in, but I didn't really see the difference. We looked at them at Lazar's, but I know Beautiful Beginnings carries them, too.

I DON'T love my glider/rocker - it is too narrow and I can't even use the boppy while sitting in it, I have to use a pillow to nurse and a few times my daughter has squirmed and hit her head on the wooden end of the arm.

I just bought the $80 one from Wal-Mart and it served it's purpose but, I'll give you a couple of reasons not to buy it.

1. The ottoman.. is fine till your child is old enough to pull up on furniture.. then it is a hazard. We've had our chair for seven years now and haven't used the ottoman for 6 1/2 of that. In fact, I think we tossed it.

2. The wood arm rests are very uncomfortable and as tempting as it is to rest a little head on it, you can't.

3. Beneath the seat there are bolts that stick out. My daughter took a spill last year and reached out for the glider to catch herself. The seat pushed back out of the way and she caught her eye socket on the bolt.. resulting in stitches and crows feet at 2 : (

Other than all that, it has been a sturdy chair and has held up well.

Our Lazy boy was a big fat lemon. I have never spent so much on furniture that breaks down (both couch and recliner). They do not service their own stuff, so you will get a man who works in 5 states and gets to our area about once a month. If they work well, they work, if they don't, it is horrible!

Personally, I'd go for the LaZ-Boy, but I don't have either (we bought a glider, but it was cheaply made so we returned it and never replaced it.) Most people I know who have glider/rockers and older kids use them to pile clothes on in the spare bedroom, so it seems like kind of a waste to me. My MIL has a rocker/recliner and I liked sitting on it with the babies when we visited.

I like my reclining glider. It is like the gliders (motion, wood, cushion), but leans back like a recliner. You can check them out at 'Little Deb'n Heirs' in Naperville. They are pricy, but it was one thing we splurged on. The only set back is that it doesn't provide a lot of lumbar support for the lower back. And if you are crowded in a regular glider mine is the same size.

Hi Michelle:

I LOVE my glider. My son is 5 months old we use it every single day.

My glider is the cottage glider made by Little Castle and you can choose the fabric that you want. It is the most comfortable chair we tried because the back is higher and it supports your head when you lean back. (I know this sounds like a common sense that every chair should support your head when you lean back, but that is not the case. Keep this is mind when you try them out.) We have an ottoman, which I HIGHLY recommend, that also glides. Please note, that the ottoman comes in two heights and we have the lower height. The higher height seemed very awkward for us and I am SO glad that we bought the lower height because, like all furniture that is used daily, the cushion compresses on the chair and this would have made the ottoman way to high. Another added benefit of the ottoman is that it allows me to lay my son on the ottoman, put on my boppy, pick him up and then bring him to my lap in order to nurse him. If we didn't have the ottoman I have NO idea where I would put him. Lastly, the chair swivels which allows you to easily turn the chair and get out without waking a sleeping baby.

I would also like to point out, some chairs that have a built in foot rest have a handle to release the foot rest which is great, but others require you to push the foot rest down with the back of your calves. I can't imagine having to do that while a) holding a baby or b) if you had a c section.

Here is the site if you are interested in taking a look.
http://www.littlecastleinc.com/adchairs.html

They are not the least expensive chairs on the market, but I feel well worth the money and quite a bit less expensive than pottery barn kids.

Please let me know if I can answer any questions.

Best,
A.

I found a beautiful upholstered glider/rocker at Lazar's in Chicago that doesn't look like a glider at all, but a really lovely chair. I love the back and forth motion - very calming for everyone! - and that it swivels. I got the gliding ottoman that goes with it though I didn't use that as much as I thought I might. Your idea of a recliner is interesting though. I used to DREAM of reclining when I'd nurse my daughter to sleep and then be stuck there because she was so little and really liked to be on me and I was so tired. I kept dreaming of being able to just recline so we could both sleep together. By the time I'd get up and prop pillows and get myself situated with her on my chest in bed, she was awake. So, a rocker-recliner might be just the thing. Try both out and see how they feel. That would be the best way to tell.

My daughter and I read in it every night, it is awesome and well worth the $400+ I paid for it and the ottoman.

My advice:
-definitely get an ottoman
-you get what you pay for. I love the Dutailer I have; I wanted a more "streamlined" glider bc our home is small
- this is what I bought http://www.albeebaby.com/du11rogl.html and I found that albee baby had the best price for the model I wanted

Good luck!

I shopped for gliders for months, but couldn't find one just right. I love the gliding motion, but either they were too deep, or too narrow, or too expensive, or I didn't like the style. I ended up buying a Best brand lazy boy chair at Classic Oak Design that is super comfy, and rocks, reclines, and swivels, and was 1/2 the price of most gliders. Plus, it was buy one get one free, so now we have one for the baby's room and one for the living room. Hope you find the one that's right for you.

We have the traditional rocker that comes with a ottoman (but we didn't get). Although I really like it, I would do things differently. Given the option, I would suck it up and buy one of the big glider chairs with ottomans from Babies R Us. My youngest is almost eight months old and still nursing, a lot. What I would give for a bigger, more comfortable chair that we both could snooze in while nursing!

Michelle, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Lazboy rocker/recliner! It was the only one that we found that you could lean the back of the chair back and still rock (if you put the foot rest up, you can't rock, but we don't use the foot rest that often). We got microfiber, so it's super easy to clean. And, it is so, so, so comfortable. I often tell my husband that is one of the best purchases we've ever made. It's been so nice on nights when my son has been sick and we've rocked/reclined/snoozed in the chair as it's been the only comfortable place for him. One time, when he had croup, I actually left him in the chair with it reclined slightly, and he slept that way for 2 hours, comfortably, which was a long period of time for him to sleep during that illness.

My son is 2 1/2 years old, and he and my 225 lb. husband sit in it comfortably to read and rock each night.

With a little one on the way, I will tell you that the armrests are just the right height for nursing or feeding with a bottle.

I could go on and on about how much I love this thing, but I think you get the drift ;). We use the Medela nursing stool with it for leverage in rocking; a must have during the nursing months. Also, the height of the chair is perfect, most of the gliders we looked at were really low to the ground, hard to get out of with a sleeping baby in your arms.

You can get a Lazboy rocker/recliner during good sale times (I think we actually got ours on clearance over President's Day weekend). You can save on delivery--it's not really necessary if you have a large vehicle to transport it, because they come apart in two pieces and are easy to put together. We wish we'd known that!

Anyway, feel free to send me a message if you have any questions. We feel we hit a goldmine with this purchase. Good luck!

T.

p.s. after reading some of the other responses, I wanted to add a couple of pieces of information: we got ours for about $300 (including tax, would have paid that total if we hadn't paid for delivery) and it's one of the smaller chairs, less likely to swallow you up. my sis-in-law bought a glider after i told her how much i loved my lazboy--well, after about 6 months, she went and bought a rocker/recliner because the glider was so uncomfortable!

We love, love, love our La-Z-Boy rocker recliner! I don't know if you're planning on nursing or formula, but I think the rocker-reliner is better for both. I nursed my daughter, and it was incredibly comfortable for us to snuggle up in together. The seat is wide, so she can sit next to me now to read a story at age 2 1/2. The arms are wide and soft and low, which was great for nursing. I could rest my arm on the armrest with her head on it when she was tiny, and now she likes to have her head right on the armrest herself ("Excuse me, Mommy's arm" she says). I don't often use the recliner part since I prefer to fold my legs up into the chair (also hard w/a glider) and rock, but my husband spent many a night sleeping with our daughter on his chest in the recliner. My brother had a glider with his daughter a while back, and the arms were too high to be comfortable for nursing or bottle feeding. Theirs also had hard wooden arms, so I always had to put a pillow on top, which made them even higher. My best advice would be to try them out and see what's comfortable for you- just realize you'll be spending a LOT of time there! :) Good luck with your growing family!