"theme" beds - how long do they hold interest?

Like the title says, we're looking at a fire-truck bed for my little 3-yr-old man. It'll be his first "big boy bed" and it has a trundle.

As it's between $450 - $750, DH (who has fallen in love with it) is wondering if it will actually "last" him a while. It's a single, so no worry about size wise - it just has a firetruck on the front of it!

At what age do kids grow out of themed beds like this? Please help! (we've found one on ebay for around $300 cheaper than the local shop, and it looks the same ...)

Could work till he's about 10 :-) IMO

We bought a car bed for DS1 ('cause DH had always wanted one - there's a theme here) when he was two & I can't see him getting sick of it anytime soon. I'd say he'd like it till he's 8 to 10. I wish he would get sick of it in the next year so I can give it to DS2 and get him one that's higher off the ground that I can put a spring mattress on - the car is really close to the ground & it'd be too hard to make with a heavy spring mattress.

My cousin had one of those car beds and I think he got it at about 4 and it was gone by the time he was 8. But I think that was because he's one of those kids that isn't happy with anything you get for him LOL. I know my own DS wouldn't be in one still and he's 9.5 because it's not his type of thing.

Not specific to beds as such, but my DD got to around age 7/8 when she developed sensitivities about not having "babyish" things (although I was frequently astonished by the sorts of thing she perceived as being babyish). But even so, 3-4 years is a good run for a bed and then you can either pass it on to another child or i would imagine they hold their resale value pretty well (check out similar beds on ebay, might help you decide).

We got Steph a pink castle bed with some Mary Cecily Barker fairies on it (its homemade but gorgeous) from ebay when she was getting out of the cot ('cos we needed it for Ryan!), just to help her be more interested in the 'big girl' bed, and she loves it.

Tomorrow, we are picking up a Ferrari racing car bed for Ryan from ebay (though there was a dragster bed that I would have preferred. Oh well. This one finished first.), which will hopefully get him excited about bedtime and staying in his bed. At least it has edges that come above the height of the mattress to stop him rolling out. As for the ages they will grow out of them... I don't know, and I'm not too worried. Steph's has a really good mattress, and so will Ryan's, so when they do grow out of them for their 'even bigger girl/boy bed' I won't have to fork out extra dollars for new mattresses.

I would highly recommend ebay! Unless your DH is feeling crafty!

I'm wondering the same thing, we are looking at getting DS1 a car bed and then moving DS2 from the cot into the toddler bed.

Look forward to seeing what others have experienced.

My daughter has a Princess inclosed Carriage Bed it has stairs up to it and i put a regular spring matt in there but mostly only made for a foam one . shes loves it but she is 3 and i image we will get a few years out of it hopefully .

We had a Enclosed Safari Bus for My husbands son when we had him - it could be made up as bunks if u wished . have a look around for the price range ours come from our local funirture Store but i think they have a website its FFF funirture Tasmania

My ds has a car bed we bought it off ebay for $200 it is fantastic, it has two adjustments with the mattress part.
At the moment we are using the toddler part which you use the cot mattress and this is perfect as the sides are high enough so he cant fall out so you dont need a bed rail and once he is bigger you take the end off and use a normal single mattress. I think Ds will be in it for a long time.

I think you can buy smallish toddler ones but i seen them as a waste of money.

I don't think the toddler beds are a waste of money, we bought one for Brendan which cost us $120 from Target and came with a table and chairs and also a toy box. He LOVES it and in February will have been in it for 2 years. It will get handed down to Tristan who will use it for a few years too. At the time we bought it we didn't have space for a single bed so it was perfect.