When sourcing children’s furniture, your first consideration may be how fun, and funky it is, or whether it matches the overall theme of your child’s bedroom or nursery. Obviously, style or sentiment are big considerations, but it’s even more crucial that you bear safety in mind when choosing kids’ furniture.
Appropriate materials
That fabulous glass coffee table may be all well in your cutting edge loft-style apartment, but children and glass don’t go well together: Anything fragile, breakable and potentially dangerous has no place in a nursery or kid’s bedroom. Similarly metal furniture, like beds or chairs, are too hard and unyielding. Sturdy, smooth plastic or polished wood is ideal.
Non-slip furniture
This one’s a no brainer. Lightweight, brightly colored tables and chairs may look sweet and appealing, but if they slip when in use, they’re an accident waiting to happen. Tables that are easily moved or pushed over are not a good choice for placing hot food and drink on, for example. Children must not be placed in, or on, furniture that can easily fall over.
Children’s furniture should never have sharp edges
Tables with sharp edges are a hazard for children who like to run around and whose faces are possibly even at table height. Either you don’t buy them in the first place, or pad them with something if the children are not a permanent feature.
Painted furniture should never be toxic
All furniture, not just for children’s bedrooms, must conform to present day safety standards, and this is particularly true of paint finishes. Anyone who’s gone through the pain of a teething child knows how a child can gnaw away the edges of bunk bed rails or highchairs. It’s more essential that a little one’s furniture is never covered in lead-based or toxic paint.