How Safe Is Your Bunk Bed?

The main danger with bunk beds is the ability to fall from the top bunk and injure themselves in a variety of ways; a child cannot be monitored throughout the night or for every minute that they are playing in their room so there is always a risk of a child falling from the top bunk height and hitting bedroom furniture, along with this is the risk of a child underestimating the height and jumping during playtime or a child slipping through the guardrail spacing and becoming strangled.

Although a fall alone could serious hurt a child, furniture surrounding the bunk bed can pose a further risk. Objects such as blind cords are extremely dangerous; they can easily become wrapped around a child’s neck and several deaths have occurred due to the child’s dressing gown cord wrapping around the neck during the fall. Such cases are very rare but they do raise the question of how safe our children are in bunk beds. However, bunk beds are an excellent way of construing some responsibility upon your child and as mentioned previously they are an excellent space saving device, so they shouldn’t be dismissed completely.

There are several guidelines that should be followed and communicated to your child to ensure that they operate the bunk bed like an ‘adult’, if you have more than one child include them when discussing the bunk bed rules. Although it is recommended that children under the age of six are not allowed to sleep or play on the bed, and bear in mind that even if they are supposed to be sleeping on the bottom bed they will still somehow end up in the top bunk at some point. If you do happen to have a younger child in the house it is worth purchasing a bunk bed that can be separated into two singles until the younger child is old enough to sleep on a bunk bed.

Ensure that you purchase a bunk bed that has secure guardrails that prevent a child from easily rolling off the bed, guardrails can pose a risk for strangulation therefore if there is a gap of at least 31/2 inches (89 mm) between the lower edge of the guardrails and the upper edge of the bed frame cover this with some sort of board to prevent the child slipping through.

Choose a ladder that is fixed - a ladder that has a gradient rather than being completely vertical may make it slightly easier for ascent and descent. Several things you can do at home to further increase the safety of the ladder is to purchase some sticky back rubber, available from most hardware shops, and put it on the steps and handles to give them some grip. It is also worth purchasing a night light so that during the night your child can clearly see the ladder.

Encourage safety when children are playing the bedroom; accidents often happen when a child kicks the underside of the bunk bed above resulting in it falling down on them. To prevent minimize the chance of this happening ensure there are secure slats under the mattress preventing it from falling through.

The main emphasis when buying a bunk bed is teaching your child the safe practice of using it; they need to understand the importance of safety and what can happen if they do not act in a safe manner.