Our trade association of baby gear rental companies, Baby Travel Pros, recently had a meeting with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where our representative asked for a change in the compliance date to the 2011 crib standards, as they affect our businesses. The change was granted and extended to December 28, 2012 to be consistent with the date given to hotels, child care centers, and other places of public accommodation. The ruling can be read here.What does this mean for you as a renter of baby gear? Rest assured that our crib inventory will be just as safe as it is today, right up until new cribs are obtained. As the Associations current president and co-founder, I along with my colleagues requested this extension to allow us time to obtain the commercial inventory that is so scarce in the marketplace right now. As of this post, most of our 68 members have been unable to find any cribs that meet our needs.
What does this mean for you as a consumer? You can still use your non-compliant crib in your own home as long as you want to, however it will be illegal to sell, resell, or donate (unless out of the country) a non-compliant crib after June 28, 2011. This includes manufacturers, retailers, consignment stores, and individuals. Again, hotels, child care facilities, and rental companies have until December 28, 2012 to update their inventory. The main changes made to the previous 40 year old standard were to the integrity of the crib slats, types of hardware, banning of drop-sides, integrity of mattress supports, and requiring more rigorous testing that a crib must pass. Here is a Q&A put together by the CPSC explaining the 2011 crib safety standards.
I'd like to explain why I choose to use "commercial" crib inventory instead of purchasing from the many manufacturers that sell cribs at Babies R Us and the like. The crib is the single most popular item in most rental companies inventories. In one year, a single crib can go in and out of our delivery van about 80 times (two trips for each rental), and set up and used about 40 times. Of course they are safety checked between each rental and to date I have NEVER had a safety issue while a crib has been out on a rental. I currently use Foundations folding full sized cribs because they are extremely sturdy, never been recalled, do not require assembly which limits wear on the hardware, and they look nice to boot. Many commercial cribs were already made to the voluntary ASTM standard that the new CPSC crib standard was modeled after, however most manufacturers are choosing not to retest or retrofit current models, but rather come out with a whole new line. Our current cribs may actually pass these new standards, but we will never know because they will never be tested.
We are currently working with several commercial manufacturers to obtain new inventory and as soon as it's available, we will begin replacing our fleet of cribs. Unfortunately this is no small investment, and one that I will make for the third time in 4 years due to the ever-changing environment of crib safety and recalls that's been going on for the last 2 years. However, as a parent of two small daughters myself, there's no price you can put on a child's safety.
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