I had a similar issue but it wasn't the crib. I had one sim parent who could interact with the infant fully, but the other parent had very limited options, could only upgrade the crib, not place the infant in it, etc.
What happened was that after aging up from Newborn to Infant, the parent that didn't do the 'age up' interaction, had to be Introduced to the infant by the other parent. After that, all the full options were available. I think it might be a gameplay glitch, because both parents had a high relationship with the newborn. So it doesn't really make sense for a child to forget its own mother just because of a birthday.