Safety Guidelines You Need to Know about Fun Kids Bunk Beds

When a child outgrows his crib, the only real option for us parents is to move him to a much larger bed, more preferably a fun kid’s bunk bed.

Bunk beds are typically found in children’s rooms and university bedrooms. This is because of the ideal feature that bunk beds present- space conservation. Because of this space saving advantage, bunk beds are more frequently seen in military garrisons, ships and other spaces with very limited floor area.

Beds such as these have four poles for support and a ladder to help kids reach the upper bunk. But children, who are aged much older, do more creative techniques to get to the second bunk which create more fun.

For safety measures, the top bunk is equipped with guardrails to avoid instances of falls during horseplay and sleep. Because of the potential risks that bunk beds suggest, children aged under 6 are normally not advised to stay in the upper bunk.

Every year, thousands of children are sent to emergency rooms to receive injury treatments for kid’s bunk bed accidents. These are only minor issues and are commonly associated with falls while sleeping or during play. Others are link with the underlying construction of the bunk bed while some are due to more obvious reasons that lead to suffocation.

To help ensure the safety of our kids, please consider the following.

Guardrail spacing is very crucial specifically for fun kids bunk beds. In a number of cases, spaces between the mattress and the guardrails are considerably large which in turn can cause the child to slip through. There are minor cases where children were found dead because due to strangulation on his own bunk bed.

There are guardrails that are attached only by means of hooks. Beware as such may cause your child to get trapped or fall.

To secure your child’s safety, place additional boards on the guardrails to close the gaps.

There are kids bunk beds that are guarded only in one side. This is usually for the purpose of placing the other side nearest to the wall. However it is still not a very wise option. Children who roll off to the non-guarded side often received minor injuries. However, a hazard such as this does not only apply with bunk beds with single guard rail. Regular beds often pose such danger too.

Some mattresses dislodge due to very unsecured mattress foundations. This often occurs when a child in the lower bunk happens to kick the bottom of the upper bunk. Deaths have occurred due to suffocation. Therefore, it is best to secure the mattress foundation with added structures to help avoid unwanted incidences.

Always match the size of the mattress with the bed frame. They only come in two sizes- a smaller one and one that is five inches longer than the other. Therefore, it is best to purchase a bed shell and a mattress with the same sizes. Some deaths are accounted to strangulation when a kid gets trapped in between the bed and the mattress.

When shopping for kid’s bunk beds, it is wise to be watchful on these potential problems. Do not jump into the cheapest or the first bunk bed you see. Check everything, even try the bed yourself! If you would not want your child to end up lying on a hospital room one day, see to it that his would-be bunk bed has all the safety features.