— Kids Bed

We received this be as a gift for our 2 year old boy. He has no problem getting in and out of it, and loves the ladder. He thinks the cubby holes are a place to play. So far he has not been able to sleep in it , just to darn exciting!

The bed we very easy to build, and seems very sturdy. The only complaint I have is there is no room for a box spring. There is only about 17 inches of depth to it. This is fairly minor, IMO.

We are very happy with this bed, and expect our son to get many years out of it.

We just got 2 of these beds for our 2 and 4 year old (4 year old with autism) thanks to on-line reviews. We live in a major cosmopolitan area where we could not find a set of 2 beds for our children that were safe. Every twin bed we found required box springs, had no side rails, had sharp corners, etc. I was shocked to discover there were no beds out there for 2-5 year olds except for toddler beds. Kids furniture stores were full of bunk beds featuring large gaps, sharp edges, breakable pole head and footboards, and were full of 90% bunk beds. Bunk beds are for ages 6 & up, and who wants the lower bunk anyway.
The boxes were almost appliance size, huge, and one had an hole in corner. The manufacturer was thoughtful enough to tape the bag of tools onto one of the support rails, so even if the large box split open, unlikely small parts could fall out. The box was too heavy to move, so we removed the pieces and walked them into the house. I let my son play a day with all the random pieces and the following day we put the beds together. It took me 20 minutes to assemble the first bed yesterday, and 10 minutes to assemble the second bed. I needed no help from my husband at all (I’m the handyman of the house). I am going to put the handles on the doors today which will probably take another 10 minutes. I actually timed it because I have put together so many kids items, that I’m always interested in which items may take enormous amounts of time (like 8 hours to assemble my daughters armoire).
After I got the beds assembled I rolled in the new bunkie boards and the new mattresses (Simmons Princeton Deepsleep mattresses -firm), and the mattress comes to just the right height, with the ladder rising about 2″ above and about a full foot of height all around for the rest of the bed. My 2 year old usually falls out of bed as she spins when she sleeps, but when I peeked in this morning, she was as usual upside down but curled up at end of bed, safely. The supports are strong and I feel comfortable tucking kids in and reading books to them with all 3 of us in the bed (I’m a bit overweight too and tall). They had no trouble climbing out of the beds either in the morning. The kids love the new beds and they have the feeling of a bunk bed, with no lower bunk to them (just storage underneath). Of course, the first thing they do is start bouncing so you may want to consider just a foam mattress (I don’t like those, but less easy to bounce) and I was terrified of a big fall down onto the hardwood floor. The beds have a somewhat Disney castle look to them. On-line photos I saw made me think the bed was just plain ugly, but the bed is really quite neutral and blends nicely colorwise. Our friends have laughed at how big they are (fill up the kids room). The color I think was well chosen as white plastic looks dirty and turns yellow, bright color plastics fade and also do not blend well with all decor, so these neutral tans work best. The arched design of the rails is well thought out as arches endure more weight and abuse than straight lines. The only complaint I have so far (like one other person reviewed) is the finish being rough. It is very easy to get raw knuckles when changing the bed linens because of the faux wood texturing. You just need to be careful. Make sure your mattress is light weight (our Simmons Deepsleep Princeton mattress is mostly hollow so is fairly easy to lift).

We also have in our backyard a full Step2 playground with the folding slide, the adobe roof playhouse, and the sand box. They are all made from same plastic batches. I used to detest large blobs of plastic, but as a parent, you find plastics work so much better with kids than natural woods, etc. I had one of those spindle canopy beds when a kid, and regularly knocked out a spindle from week to week. This bed will hold up a long time, and can donate or resell when kids ready for more mature bed, as bed should remain in same condition. Improvements I could find would be: 1) Smooth out texture of faux wood2) Manufacture a low rise version without the storage underneath (the 2 beds fully fill the floor and air space of our kids room). They have a huge closet, so I would have preferred a low-rise version. 3)Provide nicer handles for the doors. Provide a slide-in rail for where the latter is if you feel there’s a chance you kid could fall at that small opening for the latter (my husband’s worry). 4) Provide climbing latter at ends as well instead of the non-climbing 3 verticle windows at each end. 5) Provide a small inset ledge for water sippy cup.6) Offer an off-set set of stairs. Although my kids are happy with straight up stairs, they generally just jump out instead of bothering to turn around to go back down them. This could be a little difficult for middle of the night bathroom run. We always keep a lamp going with a 7 watt bulb in their room that makes perfect night lighting for them.7) Instuctions should show a rubber mallet instead of metal hammer, as I chipped off edges of several of the pegs. No drill was needed although I do often use a small rechargeable Black & Decker screwdriver for projects like this. But the bed goes together without need of any screws (the screws are just for final ornamentation a few security corners of bed, but the bed is fine without a single screw in place (just the pegs are all that’s really needed). Overall, great product! Still shocked that not more companies make anything like this (we tried IKEA that sold only propriety mattresses and particle board, Lullaby Lane Kids Furniture that had no 2 matching twin beds with rails, and couldn’t find anything in the SF bay area that has anything like this. We purchased from Home Depot on-line, as easier to make returns with them at no shipping cost if needed to return. Yippie! Our kids are finally out of our bed & happy in their own beds! I got my husband back too!

The $14.00 is for a piece of subfloor from Lowes. I agree the supports under the mattress are not great. So I went to Lowes bought a piece of OSB Subfloor 38.5″ wide 75″ long is the measurement. Standard twin bunkie board size is 39 x 75 but this would have been too wide. This makes this bed the PERFECT bed. SUPER sturdy and will last many years. My 6’4″ 250 lb hubby climbs in bed with my 2 year old and the thing doesn’t budge. I will agree that the material is a little rough when making the bed (tucking in the corners) but the surfaces that your child will come in contact with are fine. Jax has yet to scratch himself! I also put this puppy together all by myself in less than a half hour. Overall great bed and would buy again.
PLEASE NOTE: Use OSB subfloor for 2 reasons. A) the resin that holds it together is not the nasty stuff from China that can be harmful to your kiddos. Plywood and MDF use that yucky resin. B) It’s CHEAPER 🙂

Ok here is a perfect solution to your boxspring problem. I recently bought my teenage daughter and my 2 year old bunk beds and of course you can’t have boxsprings on them so they suggested for the same support to get a bunkie board. they are about 25 bux and work the same as a boxspring except they are only about 1or 2 inches thick. Good luck hope it helps

We spent a great deal of time researching ‘big boy’ beds for our sons birthday and were very excited when we found this one.

As previously mentioned, it was very easy to put together and our son loves it, but…there are 2 major design flaws. 1) the doors do not hang straight and so it really looks shabby and used. 2) box spring cannot be used as it would make the top of the bed almost as high as the railings and the mattress that we have to use on its own sags between the support bars.

We have been in contact, sent pictures, letters…to Step 2 in hopes of having these resolved. The customer reps are great but the ‘engineering team’ has reported back to us that, “that is just the way the bed is made – nothing we can do about it.”

I will say that they have agreed to send additional support bars so at least the mattress hopefully wont sag, but i am really disappointed with the doors. It looks so tacky and i would definately return the bed if my son didnt love it so much!

Think twice before spending $300 on this bed because if it is anything like ours it will look used from day 1.

We purchased this bed for our […] a couple of months ago and he loves it. The only thing that bugs us is the doors not hanging straight but I think that is from the bed shifting. They hung straight for the first day or so. The under-bed storage is a huge deal for us since we rent and don’t have a lot of storage options. We can fit so much stuff under there and his room can still look neat and organized. He has never had a problem with the ladders, just had to show him once and he got it. We are using a bunk board and a twin matress. I think it helped when moving him from his crib because it still gives him that crib feeling. The bed is pricey but for all you get, it is well worth it. It is one of the best purchases we have ever made. We are very pleased!

The Step2 Lifestyle Twin Bed was very quick and easy to assemble. My son, 2 1/2, loves his new bed and he even enjoyed helping me to assemble it. I love the fact that the sides are high and I do not have to worry about him falling out. I also like the storage compartments underneath. My sons uses the storage area as a barn for his stuffed animals. He has slept in his new bed for the past 3 nights and he is very proud of himself as well as his new bed.

We got this for my son for xmas and I just assembled it. It was very easy to assemble. Most of assembly is typical of step 2 products, pop and lock then screws for added security. It took me about an hour but I also stopped half way through for a bit. My son is 2 and LOVES IT. He could climb right away. It does require a ‘bunkie board’ (in instructions) however I just got a piece of plywood for 5 dollars and had it cut to twin size and it fits perfect. I put a sheet over it to try to keep splinters out of mattress but you can’t even tell. With a fairly thick mattress and the 1/2 inch plywood it leaves a nice lip so my son won’t fall out. The storage underneath is awesome also. It holds A LOT. I can store all his extra diapers/wipes, toys including a ride on toy that is always in the way, sheets, and he still can climb under!

It’s very durable feeling. I am 180 pounds and I feel like it’s sturdy under me. It says it holds up to 300 pounds and I’d believe it. All in all while this bed is very pricey and large (it comes up to my chest but I’m short and the box is HUGE) it’s a great investment and awesome I just wish it came in a queen size!!!!

After reading lots of reviews for this bed here on Amazon and on other websites (everywhere overwhelmingly 4+ stars on average) we decided to purchase this bed for my 2.5 yo son. It arrived quickly and was very easy to put together (30 min?). I had read some reviews that mentioned that with a boxspring and a mattress the bedding was too high and there was little if any lip around the edge of the bed to prevent rolling out. That was fine with us – we already had a spare twin mattress, so this meant we didn’t need to buy a boxspring. I’m really glad we used only the mattress. It leaves a nice edge all around so I have no worries about my son falling out. (In fact, our mattress height looks very much like the height of the mattress in the item picture, so it’s likely there’s not a boxspring being used in those photos.) The second issue with the boxspring is that without it, the mattress alone might feel a little less sturdy in the bed since it only rests on 4 small slats running underneath. My husband’s solution was to get a piece of plywood cut to size – perfect! My only 2 real complaints about the product (and hence only 4 stars) are that (1) I wish the manufacturer would add more slats for mattress support, so that plywood or some other support doesn’t need to be added/purchased separately, and (2) as mentioned by others, the plastic is a little rough in places, but really only noticeable when you’re trying to tuck sheets in place. Changing a bed can be a bit of a challenge – since I’m short I pretty much have to climb into the bed to do it, but it’s not a big deal.

My son absolutely loves this bed. For the first week he wanted to play in his room all the time – crawling under the bed, getting in and out. The novelty has worn off now, but he still gets excited to climb in and out. And he actually stays and plays in his bed in the mornings before I come to get him up! With his old toddler bed he never stayed in bed in the morning. He’s not very agile, so I was a little worried about the ladder and I had to remind him a few times in the beginning that he had to turn around to climb down. He mastered it very quickly though.

Assembly was easy. For kids though, the ladders are a little too vertical. My 4 year old would have prefered the steps offset just enough to see them. Once she got used to swinging her legs over the side and finding a step it was okay, but getting to that point was a little iffy.

If they made it so each step was 2 or 4 inches farther out than the previous one, it would give young ones a little bit more confidence and it would keep me and my wife from worrying about midnight potty runs.

Also, get it and measure depth before buying mattreses. I got standard mattresses, but they are really about 4 inches too high. I think the thickness of 2 or so inches above the top step on the ladder would be prefect, but mine are so thick they are about 7 inches above the step, also negating the sides that I hope prevent the little one from rolling off.