Simplicity's Nursery-in-a-Box: An Accident Waiting to Happen

Choosing the right crib for your family is probably one of the most important decisions you'll make for your new son or daughter. The crib is where your child will sleep most of the time, so all parents need to keep in mind the dangers a crib may pose on a sleeping child. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is only one of the dangers a young child can face. Many children are injured or killed due to poorly made cribs. Thus, you should take great care when choosing your infant's bed.

My husband and I bought Simplicity's Nursery-in-a-Box about two years ago from our local Wal-Mart for about two hundred dollars. The Nursery-in-a-Box set consists of three major pieces of furniture: a crib, a changing table, and a dresser. Having a very tight budget for purchasing our baby essentials, we chose the Nursery-in-a-Box believing we found a great deal.

The crib has the ability to convert from a standard crib to a toddler bed, which was another reason for making the purchase. The dresser has four drawers and the changing table has two shelves to put supplies. Since a mattress is not included, we purchased a standard size baby mattress (Kolcraft Pediatric 800).

That night we began assembling it and found it very difficult to put together. Some of the holes drilled in the parts would not line up correctly with the corresponding pieces. We also ran into difficulties when we had to put together the crib's mattress support consisting of several rows of bars. Anyway, the whole assembly took several hours and it was long into the middle of the night that we finished assembling it. But it is not the assembly for which I regret such a purchase.

Once assembled, I found some of the dresser drawers would not close all the way, probably due to the misaligned drill holes. When we put the mattress inside the crib, we noticed there was a gap of about 1" on each side (I can easily stick my hand in the gap without any resistance). I was afraid my daughter would be injured from it so I stuffed some blankets on both sides and hoped for the best. During my daughter's first year, I was concerned about it since my daughter rolls a lot while she's asleep. I became extremely concerned when I heard a report on the news about Simplicity's Nursery-in-a-Box.

You may have heard about the recall for Simplicity's Nursery-in-a-Box in June of 2007 for 40,000 cribs. A second recall was released in September 2007 for one million cribs. Many cribs were incorrectly assembled due to poor instructions. The instructions told parents to install the drop side upside down causing the side to fall and the metal locking pins to pop off. The second recall states that the faulty hardware allowed the incorrect assembly. If the drop side was installed upside down, the drop side could become detached and children were at risk of becoming trapped in the side or falling. There is a handful of infant deaths reported due to the poor quality of the cribs.

Our crib was part of the recall but our crib came with the new bottom track. However, that did not put to rest my fears that something could be wrong with the crib. Parents should refrain from buying Simplicity's cribs due to their unreliability and history. Children face a lot of dangers, so spare them from this one.

For more information on the recalls, visit the US Consumer Product Safety Commission website at www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07307.html.