Crib Mattresses – Why Your Mattress is Important

Crib Mattresses – Part 1: Why Your Mattress is Important

By Bud Spoerl,  Baby’s Room & Kids Too

The most important things to look for in a good crib mattress are on the inside of the mattress where you can’t see them. This is why it’s important to buy from a retailer and manufacturer with a good reputation. Most people don’t realize that most crib mattresses with names identical to adult national brands, such as Serta and Sealy, are not actually made by those same adult mattress companies. They are merely names licensed by a crib mattress manufacturer from the adult mattress company so that they can facilitate marketing by taking advantage of a nationally known name.

At Baby’s Room & Kids Too we’ve chosen to exclusively offer Colgate brand mattresses. Colgate mattresses are consistently the highest rated and meet all safety standards, including Greenguard certification.

Your crib mattress is important because this where your baby will spend nearly 70% of her time as an infant, and nearly half her time as a toddler. It’s important to use a high quality firm mattress during this early developmental stage.

Your baby’s bones are softer, and at this time are growing faster than at any other time in her life. Most of this growth will take place on the mattress. You want your baby’s backbone to conform to a straight firm mattress, allowing her back to grow straight. And since babies will sleep anywhere, you don’t have to worry about a mattress being too firm.  A rule of thumb – if the mattress feels comfortable to you, it’s probably too soft for your baby.

And never buy or put your baby on a secondhand mattress. Although a used mattress may not appear “worn out”, it may have been stored in a damp basement or other location that could pose a health risk for your baby.

In Crib Mattresses – Part 2, we’ll look at the different types of mattresses: foam, innerspring and natural/green.