A decked-out crib can be dangerous.

I had the privilege of speaking on two radio shows yesterday–WARM 103.3 with morning show host, Traci Taylor, in York, PA and Money Matters Radio with Chuck Nilosek in Boston on how to save money on baby gear. Both Traci and Chuck asked me: “What’s something lots of new parents buy for their baby that they just don’t need or that’s even unsafe?” My answer: Crib bedding.

Crib bedding–a bumper, blanket and pillow set–can run you hundreds, even thousands of dollars, depending on how designer you want to go. But it’s money that you needn’t and even shouldn’t spend because the safest cribs are bare. They’re outfitted in nothing but a tight-fitting mattress and a tight-fitting sheet. Everything else–even sleep positioners–pose a suffocation/SIDS risk. To keep your baby warm, dress your baby in a sleep sack or a swaddle sack to replace a blanket.

A bare crib isn’t something you’ll often see in stores and in magazines. Check out this study by Rachel Moon, M.D., a pediatrician at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on how more than one third of pictures of sleeping infants in magazines geared toward women of childbearing age showed unsafe sleep positions or environments that weren’t consistent with recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19706591?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=1