DANGER-PLAYPEN SHEETS

Every day, we are sadly reminded of the dangers to our babies through tragedy. Some one let their child play in a third story window, and it fell out. Put your baby to sleep on it's back, or it could suffocate like countless others. Make sure the slats in your crib are no larger than the width of a soda can. Test your toys for lead. The list grows each and every day.

So many of our children are killed of injured for the sake of progress. We don't know something doesn't work until it takes a life, right? Not only do babies die for the sake of progress, but we can loose them for the sake of convenience. I understand we all want to keep our things nice. No one wants their baby to lie on a stain. The answer seemed to be a pretty cover made specifically for the pad in the bottom of a playpen. It was cute, waterproof, and if it got irreversibly dirty, we could toss it and get a new one. It even stayed in place as the baby squirmed in her sleep, unlike those pesky receiving blankets we'd been using.

Think about the bottom of a playpen. It comes out, you fold the playpen up, and you wrap the bottom around it. It's kind of like an accordion. I am a firm believer in check, check, and check again when a baby is sleeping, and I mean check often. The baby monitor is great, but I can't see what's going on. Even the ones with the T.V. screens give me visions of a mother who thinks everything is fine until it's too late, because dead looks like sleep. Sometime between checks, the baby woke up. She wasn't angry, she just wanted to play, and she reached up and somehow got a grip on the mattress pad. Once she had a hold of it, she pulled, and it flipped the playpen pad over her head, because of the accordion like fold. Had I been much longer, she could have suffocated, and my attempt to have a stain free playpen would have resulted in that baby's death.

Please, don't use them. Even if they have fasteners, a baby is strong enough to pull it over her head. A stain is better than a life. Pass this information on, and help save lives.