Crib Safety

The Consumer Products Safety Commission yesterday decided that cribs will no longer be allowed to have a drop-side. The story caught my eye because, although we are done having babies, we still have a crib in the house, and dealing with it has been inching higher and higher on my to-do list lately.



The crib that both of our kids slept in is assembled as a toddler bed in Trystan's room. He occasionally sleeps in it, mostly at naptime. The lucky kiddo has inherited a queen-sized bed with pillow-top mattress. I don't blame him for preferring that to the little one.  But the crib and matching changing table are still set up in his room because our house has generous sized rooms but no storage (our one small basement storage room is overflowing with stuff already).


Part of the reason I haven't sold or given away our crib yet is because the sliders on the moving side of the crib broke. Not while the kids were in it.  The drop-side comes off to transform the thing into a toddler bed. The sliders were made of plastic, and they broke after the bed side sat in a closet for a year.The CPSC complains, in part, that newer drop-side cribs are not made well and thus are dangerous. We were probably not the most gentle with ours once it was disassembled (and it was on kid #2), but if the plastic sliders can break the way ours did, then I believe the claims about quality.


I did use that drop-side feature extensively when my kids were sleeping in the crib. I am only 5'4", and with the rail up and the mattress in its lowest position (the only safe place setting once babies learn to stand up in the crib), I was not able to reach over the crib to the baby. If manufacturers won't be able to sell cribs with that feature, then they're going to have to chop about six inches off the height of the crib legs so that parents can get to their kids.


I had been meaning for a few weeks to call the manufacturer and try to get replacement hardware for our old crib in preparation for a garage sale (or at least a donation). But the new rule prohibits even re-selling used cribs with drop sides, and I doubt the crib company is going to be willing to send me new slider hardware. I guess I now have a nice looking toddler bed with matching extra-deep shelving set to get rid of.