Posted on 02/27/2017
What does it mean to put safety first when it comes to your child’s bedroom furniture? Well, for one thing, it means securing furniture in order to avoid the potential for tipping. How risky is furniture tipping, and how can you prevent it? The answers may surprise you.
How Prominent Are Tipping-Related Injuries and Deaths?
According to these statistics from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s “Tip-Over Information Center," two children in the U.S. die from a tip-over accident every month. Injuries from tip-over incidents cause over 4,000 injuries per month. Since 45% of tipping-related fatalities occur in a bedroom, securing bedroom furniture is especially important. Sixty per cent of the time, tipping-related deaths are caused by the victim’s being crushed; an added 18% of deaths are caused by trapping that prevents the child from breathing. While these numbers speak for themselves, the words of actual parents (YouTube video) whose children have been victims of tip-related injuries might be even more convincing.
How Can You Prevent Tipping-Related Injuries?
In addition to instructing your children about furniture safety, there are a few simple, inexpensive steps you can take to protect your child(ren) against tipping-related dangers. First, help your child understand the safety risks of climbing on furniture. Since the age group of highest risk is 3-5 year olds, you’ll want to be especially vigilant with that age group. Teach them to open only one drawer at a time, and be sure to eliminate temptations by not keeping desirable items out of easy reach in areas where your child may be unsupervised. For those prone to climbing, viewing a video like this YouTube video together may be helpful in addition to providing safe climbing opportunities. As important as warnings and instructions may be, you also want to reduce the dangers of a child's noncompliance. A simple way to do that is by anchoring furniture to the wall via anti-tip devices or brackets attached to furniture pieces and drilled into the studs.
What Kinds of Furniture Need To Be Secured?
When you purchase high-quality children’s bedroom furniture from The Bedroom Source, you may be especially prone to Myth #5, as listed in this article: “We purchased a safe sturdy dresser and bookcase from a great furniture store.” In reality, any furniture, regardless of quality construction, can become a safety hazard, including (but not limited to) the following types of pieces:
• tall or short bookcases
• short & wide dressers with drawers
• tall chests or dressers
• any furniture with shelves, drawers, or doors
The professional white-glove, full-service furniture delivery provided for your furniture from The Bedroom Source includes anti-tipping kits for any furniture that can become unstable when all doors and drawers are open. These kits are available upon request and at no added charge to you. What’s more, they can be installed in only minutes and without any special tools or professional experience.
Continue reading with Part 2.
The Bedroom Source
Located near the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, The Bedroom Source is your source for the best collection of children's and teen bedroom furniture. From flexibly configurable Maxtrix furniture to fashionable Smartstuff collections, The Bedroom Source offers high end furniture and professional design assistance to create the bedroom of your child's dreams.
Contact the friendly staff at The Bedroom Source by calling (516) 248-0600 or by submitting our online contact form. We're a local family owned mom & pop store. When you shop with us, you're dealing directly with the owners. We professionally assemble everything we sell. We deliver to Nassau, Suffolk, the 5 Boroughs, Southern Westchester, Southwestern Connecticut & Northern New Jersey.