Baby product recalls: what to check

Children's products are recalled more often than almost any other category, and the notices follow a pattern once you have read a few. This page is about reading them quickly, and about the one part of the nursery where the rules are strictest: anywhere a baby sleeps.

The sleep products with a federal standard

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has mandatory standards for the products babies sleep in, and its business guidance on infant sleep products lists them: 16 CFR part 1219 for full-size cribs, part 1220 for non-full-size cribs, part 1218 for bassinets and cradles, part 1221 for play yards, and part 1222 for bedside sleepers. Part 1236 then covers infant sleep products that are marketed or intended for sleep and are not already covered by one of those, giving in-bed sleepers, baby boxes and compact or travel bassinets as examples. A product sold for infant sleep in the United States has to meet one of these standards, and a product that does not is subject to recall on that ground alone.

The practical test for a parent is whether a sleep product belongs to one of those categories at all. The CPSC's safe sleep page sets out the rest as a list of dos and don'ts: a bare sleep surface, and no bumpers, blankets, pillows or sleep positioners, because many young babies cannot lift their heads to pull away from soft objects that pose a suffocation risk.

How to read a children's product recall

A CPSC notice for a child's product has the same parts as any other, and three of them do the work. The hazard line says what can go wrong: small parts that can detach and choke, water beads that expand if swallowed, a teether whose eyes can detach when frozen, a dresser that tips if it is not anchored, a toy with a lithium battery that can overheat. The units line says how many were sold, which tells you how likely you are to have one. The remedy line says what to do, and for children's products it nearly always begins with stopping use and taking the product away from children before any refund or repair is claimed.

The child product recalls tracker lists current notices with those three lines, and how to get a refund or repair after a CPSC recall covers the claim itself.

The checks worth doing once

Go through the nursery and the toy box against the tracker, and include anything second-hand. Selling or giving away a recalled product is prohibited, but hand-me-downs move between families without anyone checking, and older cribs and bassinets are the products most likely to predate the current standards. Look for the manufacturer's label with the model and date of manufacture; that is what a recall notice matches against.

Anchor dressers and bookcases to the wall. Tip-over recalls are frequent, and the remedy on most of them is a refund precisely because the hazard cannot be fixed without anchoring.

Register durable infant products. Cribs, play yards, high chairs, strollers and similar products are required to come with a postage-paid registration card, and the manufacturer uses the registrations to send recall notices directly. A card left in the box is a recall letter that never arrives.

Toys and the small-ball rule

Many toy recalls cite a violation of a mandatory toy standard rather than an injury, and one rule comes up repeatedly: small balls and small parts are banned in toys for young children because they choke. A notice that says a toy "violates the small ball ban" is telling you the toy failed a test, not that a child has been hurt, and the remedy is still to take it away.

When a notice arrives

Match the model, stop use, claim the remedy, and dispose of the product as instructed, usually by marking it "RECALLED", photographing it and putting it beyond use. For anything a baby sleeps in, the CPSC's advice is the simplest guide: if it is not a bare, flat, firm surface in a product that meets one of the standards above, it is not a safe place to sleep.