No, Not the Crib Too

They either put the kid in the recalled crib and sleep fitfully, or throw out the crib and put the baby on the floor or in the stroller, or co-sleep. I know what my decision would be: our crib was generally empty by midnight, as our babies/toddlers (and yes, sometimes preschoolers) slept with us the majority of the time. But at least that was our decision, no one wants to be forced into sharing a bed because of shoddy manufacturing.

It is only the Storkcraft drop-side cribs with the plastic hardware that are being recalled, the ones with the metal hardware are getting a repair fix. Check out the Storkcraft website (which no surprise has been down most of the week), or Twitter feed for details.

But all drop-side cribs are being questioned by parents and stores alike; up to 5 million drop-side cribs have been recalled in the last few years and ToysRus has stopped carrying all drop-side cribs. To which I can say. That sucks.

We had a drop-side crib for all our kids, which we inherited from my cousins.  And dropping the side down to pick up the babies was a lot easier on my back. The side went down for the first two kids, by the time child number three got there, my hubby had to McGyver something up with bungee cords. In retrospect, I guess that wasn't too safe.

Our crib was too old to have been recalled but that is one of the problems with things like cribs, moving them from family to family often means parts and instructions get lost along the way, making the furniture unsafe.

Deciding what to do when it comes to safety recalls is never as black and white as it seems. You crunch the numbers, make a bunch of rationalizations and you usually end up in ambivalence. As CuriousDad does when he realizes he has an illegal crib. You ask yourself: What’s the chance my kid will get hurt? Is it worth the aggravation and time to repair or get a new one? Is it worth the aggravation and neuroses not to?

I know what my dad would say: we brought you home in a Moses basket in the back of the car and you turned out fine. And it’s true, when we were kids our parents probably did not even consider the safety of the products they were buying, they just didn’t do research. They were happy when a piece of furniture showed up for them to use.

Here we are in the new millenium always in search of the perfect stroller, car seat or crib, scanning the safety reports and hoping beyond hope that what we buy for our children will keep them safe. And they are safer, I think. But all these recalls create a heightened sense of unease and make you look around the house and wonder -- what's next? 

What do you do when a product in your house is recalled?