Childprofing furniture
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23 March 2018 at 4:39 pm #506616
There was a news item on tv where Consumer Reports showcased children’s furniture that could tip over and kill or injure small children. They showed a testing procedure where all the chest drawers were opened, like a child might do to climb, then on the upmost drawer they would place a 50 pound weight towards the front of the open drawer. In almost all the tests the bureau would tip over. The argument was that they should be using 60 pounds of weight as today’s kids are heavier (fatter). What struck me was all the chests shown broke into several pieces when they fell over. They literally fell apart and looked to be beyond repair after the event. The other thing that struck me was the drawers were empty, it seems to me that normally they would contain something like clothes which would add to the imbalance. I’ll admit I never thought of kids climbing dresser drawers like a ladder but it’s something to keep in mind if your making a chest of drawers for a small child.
It is a real risk, if not a low-probability one, but that doesn’t matter from a parent’s point of view. Most furniture that is bought of this variety today includes a way to tether the furniture to the wall/stud to minimize the risk of a tip-over if an unsuspecting child tries to climb it. However, I don’t know how many parents go the extra distance and install this safety feature (we did).
As a little-un, I don’t remember ever trying to climb my dressers. Neither did my own kids. But I certainly see it as a possibility as kids build their parkour skills.
As with most everything else, new stuff seems junk compared to what we grew up with. Dumping a dresser typically wouldn’t have caused it to fall apart.
I’m thinking you could offset the imbalance by adding a plywood “floor” to the bottom of the dresser (the area behind the kick plate), and adding weight (e.g. bricks) to it.
On what David said, I don’t imagine it would be difficult to devise a method to mount non-child safety equipped furniture to the wall.
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