Milkbank Blog
Things that Go Bump In the Night
Wow. Things change so quickly. When my son was born in 2005 no one was talking about crib safety or bumper pads. It was assumed that you would have a bumper pad, along with the corresponding crib sheet, quilt and matching, laminated, wall stencils, of course.
I am sooo not crafty, so my nursery doesn’t scream of a nursery like you would picture in a fancy magazine and I did forgo the stenciled appliques, but I did go with the full crib set which included, at that time, a crib bumper pad. It did look nice in his room, but the best part about it was that he loved to sleep next to it. No matter where I layed him down to sleep, I would always find him with his sweet, sweaty, baby head pressed up against that bumper pad.
It wasn’t until right before my youngest was born that I learned that the safety of using a bumper pad was being called into question. According to this link at About.com regarding bumper pads:
“Some major children’s safety organizations have recently suggested that parents and child care providers should remove crib bumper pads from baby cribs. The groups include: American Academy of Pediatrics, Health Canada, National Center for Health and Safety in Child Care, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the First Candle/National SIDS Alliance. Some state and regional Back to Sleep campaigns now recommend removing bumper pads, as well. “
Based on my own experience, I decided to use the crib bumper pad for my younger son as well. Until it fell apart. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant for two and the strings which tied it to the crib started to tear off. Now that, to me, didn’t seem safe, so I removed it.
Fearing he wouldn’t sleep as well, I called some girlfriends to see who had one they weren’t using and got my hands on one. For a week or two he went without and while I don’t think his quality of sleep suffered, I did find him more than once with his little foot sticking out from the crib slats. He wasn’t, stuck, it wasn’t dangerous, but it woke him up and that’s no good. So a replacement bumper pad has been added.
What about you? Do you use one? Are you concerned about safety? Does you baby notice the difference? Tell your story in the comments!
One Comment to “Things that Go Bump In the Night”
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I did tons of research on the stats behind crib bumpers and a lot of it is questionable (or incredibly outdated – check PubMed.com for the research). I’ve sufficiently convinced myself that as long as they are tightly attached to the crib and the ties aren’t long enough to wrap around a little neck I’ll be using them.