Monday, November 23, 2009

Keeping Kids Safe

Although I am not planning on having any more babies, I thought this was worth talking about. Evidently there is going to be a major crib recall. I read another article online about new crib regulations. Cribs will no longer be sold with drop sides? Wow.

I never had an issue with our crib, which we bought 2nd hand, a year before Elijah was born. We were trying to conceive, a friend was selling their crib for a good price, complete with bedding & bumper. We used that crib for both our sons, and sold it a year ago on Craigslist.

I'm 5'5" and when the crib needed to be set down to the lowest setting, I appreciated the drop side. We never had an issue with the rail moving when it shouldn't. But new regulations state the change is because of suffocation deaths.

I am interested to hear from you out there, still playing with babies, what you think about this. Will you replace your crib? I wonder what will become of all these cribs deemed unsafe? Landfills? Is there a new way we could repurpose these things?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, was planning on re-selling our crib once the Princess is done with it. It's an expensive solid-wood crib with a drop-side, which we've found to be invaluable. Hoping it won't be part of the recall, which would render it "un-Craigslistable." If it isn't part of the recall, I expect I will have an easier time reselling it since it may be harder to find drop-side cribs after tomorrow!

The Casual Perfectionist said...

I loved our drop-down crib. In fact, we PURPOSELY looked for one with a drop-down side. It was recalled right after we moved Claire to a big girl bed (for a different issue...not the drop side). We went through the lengthy recall process, and I wrote about it here: http://thecasualperfectionist.com/2008/11/parts-is-parts/ We ended up donating it "new in box" to a local charity, rather than deal with the hassle of Craiglisting it. (It was HEAVY and we couldn't justify spending the shipping costs and didn't want to deal with trying to load it into someone's car.)

My husband used the parts of the old crib to make a bed rail for her big girl bed, and he's saving the other parts to use in various projects.

I'm SO GLAD we're out of the crib stage, because I believe in complying with recalls, but a massive "all drop side cribs recall" sounds so drastic. Were I in the crib stage, I'd switch them, because that's how I am...but using a crib that isn't a drop-side would be a PAIN.

*sigh*

Like I said, I'm SO GLAD we're out of that stage!!

Anna said...

Our crib (from Ikea) was donated to us from a friend, and it had seen other three babies before ours, bringing it to a total of five babies. I plan to give it to someone for free so that it can be used by more babies, or, if nobody needs it, give it to Goodwill. Ciao.