For many parents a good night's sleep is a rare event. The possibility of your infant or toddler climbing out of his crib at night or during nap time has prompted the development of the crib tent. While the purpose of this product is to provide greater safety to your child, injuries have demonstrated serious hazards associated with the use this product. Some parents have used crib tents for many years with success, keeping their child safely confined to his crib, while others have experienced dangerous situations where their child has died or nearly lost his life due to the use of a crib tent.
Construction
Most crib tents are dome-like structures constructed using mesh material and fiberglass poles that can be attached to the majority of standard-size and portable cribs. On some crib tent models the mesh part hangs down around the inside edge of the crib slats.
Purpose
Crib tents have been designed to prevent infants and young children from falling out of the crib, wandering around the house while parents are asleep, or entrapping a limb between crib slats. The popular crib tent models claim to prevent bugs and family pets from entering the crib and disrupting your child’s sleep.
Warning
According to Safety Research & Strategies, an incident involving a portable crib tent in 2009 left a 2-year-old boy dead after he became entrapped between his portable crib mattress and the hanging mesh of the crib tent. Other parents have reported incidences where their young children have taken out their frustrations at bedtime by ripping the crib's mesh or breaking the product so that they consequently became dangerously entangled or entrapped by the broken crib tent.
Regulation
There are no standards or certifications provided by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) for crib tents. And there are no federal regulations to enforce specific design and structural specifications for crib tents. The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) offers a voluntary certification program for manufacturers of child products; however the only U.S. manufacturer of crib tents does not as of 2010 offer JPMA certificates with its crib tent products.
Consumer Reports Weighs In
According to Consumer Reports, the safest way to put your infant to bed is in a bare crib. Crib bumpers, pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, netting and crib tents increase the risk of asphyxiation and should not be used on your child’s crib. If your child can climb out of his crib, he should be moved to a toddler bed. If you are concerned that your young child will fall out of the toddler bed, place a mattress on the floor beside the bed to cushion her fall.
