"combo unit" dressing table/hutch

[Anonymous]

I am five months along (with our first!) and we're starting to work on our nursery. It is a rather small room so I need to opitmize space. I have seen a lot of changing tables with a hutch above for extra storage. I just wonder if the hutch part would get in my way. Does anyone have one of these? Thanks for any insight!

[Anonymous]

I have a combo unit in terms of having storage underneath (like real furniture) and a side cabinet but..I would avoid the kind with the hutch above. Why? I am now on number two and could see right now if I had a hutch overhead it would be just awkward to fit her in at this point (2). Not to mention, do you really want stuff directly overhead if you are changing? I would suggest ordering pretty soon though so you can get more options i.e. if you use a pottery barn kind of place rather than BabiesRUS.

[Anonymous]

I also have a really small room. We considered the hutch, but I am glad we don't have it. The regular dresser is a lot more versatle and it will be easier to move it to other places later without the hutch. Also, when babies get older, the squirm a lot. The hutch would have been in the way. You could consider wall-mounted shelves instead.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We purchased the hutch style with our first baby. It was fine while he was a little infant, but once he made it into the toddler stage I hated it. Even though looked like there was lots of room, my son would constantly try to kick to the top or stand up an open the drawers, etc. When #2 came along, the one piece of baby furniture we purchased was a plain dresser and we just secured a contoured changing pad on top. It works much better!

[Anonymous]

We have the world's least cooperative toddler and have the hutch. It is not really in the way, but he does like to try to stand up and grab things. We try to keep an interesting toy or two up there for distraction purposes.

The hutch itself is not in the way of changing. And the extra storage is nice. If you decide it is in the way, you can probably remove it and then put it back after diapers are over, when it will be useful for storing books and stuff.

Just make sure the whole piece of furniture is stapped to the wall before you get a climber.

[Anonymous]

I agree with 22:59. We also had a really small room for our ds. We just got a regular low 6-drawer dresser and secured a changing pad on top of it. It worked really well and now that he's almost 4, it doesn't look like he has a changing table in his room.

[Anonymous]

I have a small nursery and wanted the same kind of storage and had the same concern. My mother found at potterybarnkids.com a great solution-the Madison Changing table system. There really isn't a hutch but storage around ...see for yourself. We already received the item and i love it...so much space to hold everything and comes in various colors. I paid to have it delivered and put together at my house so pain free. Here is a link...http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/k654/index.cfm?pkey=cchanging%2Dtables%7Cb Good luck

[Anonymous]

We have a hutch and so far it seems to be working out just fine. The hutch part is set back so it doesn't seem to get in the way. It is nice to have the storage right above you.

[Anonymous]

We have a hutch/dresser combo and I love it. When DS was uncooperative and wanted to stand up for diaper changes, I liked that the hutch part was there for him to hang onto. Our hutch has two sets of shelves -- one set that's about 2/3 of the width of the piece and another set on the last 1/3. I found it key that the lowest shelf above the wider changing pad part of the dresser top is removable. (They may all be like that, but you couldn't change a toddler with a really low shelf there.)