Dangerous imported crib from Kmart

My mother inlaw bought my son the same crib and he is one now but when
he was around nine months he also chewed a nice chunk out of it and it
started to splinter so we had to buy the teether rails to put all
around the crib and not to menttion the plastic from the front cracked
in half and came off.it was supper sharp and cut me when I was trying
to get the rest of it off.so be verry carefull. there has ben a recall
on some cribs with the sliding front rail like this one I have to call
tomorrow to see if this is one of the recalls. I really think it
should be!!!

I really wish I would have seen this site before I bought the crib...
I bought the crib a little over 3 mo ago. My daughter is 3 mo now and
rolling over like crazy so I put it together to get her out of her
bassinett. I accidentally bumped the crib and the drop side fell.
Then my 3 yr old back into it and the drop side fell off. This is
completely unsafe. I cannot put her back into this crib. This is
terrible. I just called the no I found on this site for it because
there is no number on the paper work or box, and they couldn't find
the crib with the model no. Then I told her it was the heritage
collection and she knew what it was. They are replacing the drop side
and tracks but I don't think that will fix it, but hopefully. Good
luck to anyone else who bought this crib.

here is the phone number not sure if you gotten it yet or not.
1-800-295-1980 the address is
customer service department no.413
12345 albert hudon, suite 100
montreal, Quebec
Canada H1G3L1.
I am having problems with the side rail coming down and the screws are
always loosening... ugh...
hope this helps.

I purchased this same crib from Kmart last October and this has to be
the most cheap made crib ever! The problem I'm having is that the
front of the crib that lets up and down is so shakey I'm afraid its
going to fall while my baby is in it. When you push on the rail at the
bottom to let the side of the crib down is what has made it so
rickidy. I wish I had known more about this crib. I wouldnt have paid
$10.00 for this crib at a yard sale! There should be something to make
Kmart refund the money or exchange it for a better made item.

MY GRANDSON HAS ONLY 2 TEETH AND YESTERDAY MY DAUGHTER IN LAW CALLED
TO SAY HE HAD BITTEN A CHUNK OUT OF THIS CRIB. I BOUGHT IT FOR HIM
AND FEEL TERRIBLE! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!

D.DUFFIN

Kmart is not the only store selling this crib. I purchased the same
crib from Sears Essentials and the screws keep coming out as well as
one of the side bars is cracked. My granddaughter is 11 months old.
I am in process of contacting the company and Sears to try to resolve
this issue. This crib also has bite marks from my granddaughter
chewing but so far no wood chunks in her mouth. I do agree bashing
the store is not the answer but pushing the company for a recall may
be the direction to go. It is going to be my suggestion to them and
if that doesn't work getting the word out to other parents via the
Internet will at least stop others from making the same purchase.
Good luck to all with whatever you choose to do.

WOW, AND I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY PARENT WHO WAS HAVING THIS PROBLEM.
NOW MY SON IS 18 MONTHS OLD, IM CHANGING IT INTO A TODDLER BED, FOR
HIS SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF HIS TEETH.. I REALLY THINK KMART SHOULD
HAVE LET US KNOW, THERE WERE SOME MANY COMPLAINTS ABOUT IT..

i AM HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM RIGHT NOW! IT IS 2008 AND I HAVE HAD IT
FOR 6 MONTHS.... YES MY CHILD IS CHEWING IT but THE MAJOR PROBLEM IS
THE WOOD IS BOWING AND THE RAILS AND THE BACKBOARD HAVE SPLINTERS AND
ONE CAUGHT ON MY SONS CLOTHING! THAY SAID THEY WILL REPLACE THE FRONT
AND BACK BUT WHAT ABOUT HTE SIDE RAILS THAT ARE SPLINTERING!

I bought the same crib. I've always had the side down and now that my
daughter is a bit more mobile I keep the side up. It drops down about
an inch. I pick it up and it drops again. This is not safe. What
would happen if it dropped down more? Time to call and get some
answers and get this crib off the market. To bad there are problems.
It is a really nice looking crib. *sigh*

The same thing happened to my son today and he is ten months old. I
heard him choking and found chunks of the wood from the crib in his
mouth so I called k mart to get the manufacturers number and they said
it was on the crib I can't find it on the crib so they gave me the
1866kmart4u number. i don't know what to do either because now I can't
put my son in his crib it's too dangerous. I also discovered that one
of the screws from where the frame is wiggles and that can't be safe.

I also bought the Heritage collection 3-in-1 converible crib, but in
white. My son who was 10 mos at the time, did the same thing. He was
in his crib playing while I was cleaning, when I turned to check on
him he had white paint chips all over his mouth and face. He had been
gnawing on the side of the crib which is unprotected. I called the
K-mart by my house but they couldn't do anything about it.
Fortunately, poision control assured me the paint was probably
non-toxic. So if you get help, let me know.

Erin O'Rourke
Palm Beach Gardens, FL

I bought a top of the line crib for my daughter 5 years ago- she loved
to chew and chewed chunks out of it also. The crib needed sanding, but
otherwise has worked perfectly fine for my other two children. Some
kids chew. It does not have anthing to do with the quality of your
product.
Regarding your "cheap imports" comment- a lot of the products sold at
K-Mart or Wal Mart, are imported because the cost is lower, although
frequently the quality is comperable to that of items made here in the
USA. It is unreasonable to assume that simply because a company is
located outside of the United States, their products are inferior. We
are a nation of immigrants. Your country of residence does not
necessarily effect the quality of your craftsmanship.
If companies offering discounted prices had to purchase their products
from goods produced here in the United States, their prices would be
higher and those of us who benefit from the reduced price would not be
able to afford these products.

Whoooo boy!! Where to start? From what I picked up in various
responses of yours:

41 yrs. old
9-mo. old son
6 kids
2 grandkids
SINGLE
LIMITED FUNDS

And yet, you have the effrontery to state about KMart buyers (or was
it managers?):

'These people need to be educated...'

If you want to see someone who needs to be educated---look in a
mirror. After 5 children, hadn't you yet learned what caused them?

The disgusting thing in all this is that KMart will probably give in
to your unreasonable demands. Then they'll raise prices on
merchandise to make up for what the freebie cost that they send you.

Rather than approach this as an FYI letter, you have the high and
mighty attitude that the whole world owes you: '...telling me if she
didnt get back with her to call her back...I dont think so!'

I hope the kids you've had don't grow up with the same attitude. But
the acorn seldom falls far from the tree.

I'd like to say this is K-mart's fault, but I have a little story for
you.

When I was a child, my parents had a top-o-the-line crib for me (the
first born). I forget the brand, but I remember hearing from my mom
when I was older about the great brand it was...maybe Childcraft? I'd
have to ask.
Anyway, it survived me, and then the older of my two younger brothers.
Then my youngest brother came along. He liked to chew on things. And
he ate a hole right out of the top of the "headboard". There was
nothing my mom could do to stop him. She even put that horrible
tasting finger-nail stuff on it. Nothing. Eventually he outgrew the
crib before he stoppped eating it. My mom pulled splinters out of his
mouth every morning.

Eventually my dad's little brother had kids, and they needed a crib.
My parents sanded off and refinished the bitten area, and although
there was an obvious hole in the crib, it was of fine quality, and
withstood my little cousins, too.

Moral of the story, it doesn't matter if your crib is a cheap import
or a fine quality piece of furniture. Kids who like to chew on things
do not discriminate. It's like that cat that claws up your leather
funiture.

Your son is fine. He will survive even if he did ingest a little
wood.

My mom bought my son's crib from a second hand store. I guess it was a
good thing. It was very well made and it has none been passed on to my
nephew. Everyone has added their teeth marks to it too.

I dont know what to tell you to help you but your son is fine.

Well, in the meantime, is there something you could purchase so that
your son has a crib? I mean, I think there is some harmless clear,
rubber or plastic tubing you can find at Home depot that you could cut
and wrap around the wood he is biting. I don't know, just a thought.

and keep calling that number that you said you called and got an asian
woman's voice recording. Keep calling, if it is a 1-800 number.

Try complaining to the COMPANY who made the product and not the
innocent store who just SELLS the "junk"

I guess this would be a bad time to mention that duct tape has many
uses and would work a treat wrapped around the bars of the cage, I
mean crib? Hmm, thought so. :)

I'm not gonna debate the price of the crib, since I don't have clue
one about how much they should cost, though after reading that some
cribs can be up to $500 I felt a bit faint - with relief that is.
There but for the grace of small mischeivous beings, go I. :)

That being said, I'm sure if you call K-Mart and remain calm, they
will be more than happy to work with you. Calm being the operative
word here. Accusing them of deliberately endangering children is going
a bit far, so is expecting KMart to buy you a new crib. I'm sure they
will let you return it for a refund or exchange.

It seems the moral of this story is: What you decide to buy is
completely up to you.

I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, as a parent, I
would be appalled if his crib posed to be such a safety hazard.
Though you get what you pay for, I would think that even the cheapest
cribs would have to adhere to basic safety standards, such as the wood
not be able to splinter, etc. Surely manufacturers have tests they do
for their products. I also have a "cheap" crib (about $200), but I
haven't ever had any problems out of it.

On the other hand, I have a hard time believing that you didn't notice
your son's crib starting to scratch and splinter before he was able to
bite off an actual chunk of it! Even with the most violent chewing, I
would think it would take an awful lot for a toddler to bite and tear
off a piece of wood. I don't think I could even bite through a piece
of wood! Futhermore, your remark "if she didnt get back with her to
call her back...I dont think so!" was uncalled for. It sounds like
the manager was more than willing to help you, but I'm sure things
like that take time. It wasn't unreasonable for her to ask you to
call her back. I'm sure if she was so accommodating to you, she is
doing similar things for other customers as well.

Was the crib, by chance, recalled after you purchased it and you
didn't know about it? There are websites, though I don't know one
offhand, that post product recalls. K-Mart's website may have a
product recall list as well. Check it out...maybe it really is a
dangerous crib!

At any rate, I'm really glad your son is ok and I hope this matter is
resolved and you are able to get a new crib.

I don't think this is normal. I've seen kids bite cribs and cause the
wood to splinter but never a chunk of the wood and everyone I know has
paid less then $300 for their cribs. I think Kmart should take care of
this problem but I don't expect them to. I've heard lots of bad things
about Wal-Mart but my worse experience with them is 100 times better
then my average experience with Kmart.

I had to think about this one a bit before I responded. I purchased a
crib for my son through Burlington Coat Factory. It didn't have bite
guards either, and neither did my daughters back in 2000 (except for
the front). I took a closer look at my sons crib and it appears that
it would be very difficult for him to chew through the material.
There are very few scratches at all on the edges, most of which are
barely visible, so it would take a lot for him to even make tooth
marks in the wood let alone bite chunks off of it.

I certainly think that the manufacturer should be held accountable in
this case. They should replace your crib with a safer model or at
least the same model, including bite shields.

I completely disagree with those saying that she should have known her
son would bite through the material. We rely upon the manufacturer of
goods such as cribs to make safe products. We can't possibly be there
every second to see that precious isn't biting on the side of the
crib. Biting is something many many many teething toddlers do. This
is something that should most certainly have been brought into
consideration when desiging the product.

Im with you on this. Whether you paid 30 or 3000, I would expect a
product sold by a big name company for small children to be safe.
Thankfully he didnt choke on the chunk of wood he managed to get off.
I was looking at this same crib for my next child due in the spring- I
will look elsewhere. I had a great crib but when my daughter was 11
months I moved it and riped out the screws (my own fault) she ended up
in toddler bed before her first birthday. I think most children will
chew, even more so when teething and I wouldnt expect chunks to come
off a crib, maybe scratch it but not chunks, sound like seriously
cheap material to me, and a chioking hazard. Good luck

Thank you for sharing this letter. I am shopping for a crib for my
little one because she is about to grow out of her basinette. I think
I am going to spend a little extra and get a solid wood one.

Can put your son somewhere else when he is not sleeping? That way he
won't chew his crib.

I dont know quite what I think about this one.. perhaps because I dont
have children of my own. But in all the babies I HAVE known, I've
never known one to actually chew CHUNKS off of their cribs. Something
about that just doesnt seem normal. Those of you who actually have
children and say that this isnt a defect of the crib, I assume your
children have chewed chunks off of their wooden cribs? That this is a
perfectly normal occurance? Otherwise, and assuming her child is not
the next Hulk, the crib could be made out of a weaker wood than is
best for children. And I have a hard time believing that the
government would allow ANY crib, cheap or not, to be treated with
dangerous chemicals.

How about some Apple Bitter. Sure it's for dogs, but it's non-toxic
and it tastes like crap. That should help keep the kid from gnawing
on the furniture.

Let me give you a hint. If it was purchased at a discount retailer
(such as Kmart) and it cost only $130, it's likely (probably,
actually) that the wood was treated with formaldehyde, among other
dangerous chemicals. Most low-end wood products and carpeting is
treated with carcinogenic chemicals, and then they emit fumes over
time. Some people react very strongly to these chemicals, others do
not (that in a way that is exhibited outwardly, anyway).

Your kid chews, and you knew that when you bought the crib, I assume.

And what's with the snotty comment "telling me if she didnt get back
with her to call her back...I dont think so!" So someone from whom
you were trying to get some help told you, "If you don't hear back
from me, give me another call," and you're above that? I've done that
myself -- told someone to give me a call if they don't hear back from
me. That way, my forgetfulness doesn't get in the way. Get over
yourself.

And your crib is dangerous because?

Because you child chews on it? That's not K-Mart's fault. Nor is it
the fault of the manufacturer.

You would have a legit complaint if the crib fell apart with your
child in it, but you are blaming them over something they have no
control over.

I dont see this being K-Marts fault at all. YOU purchased a crib and
guess what, Children chew on stuff! There are products out there to
protect the crib (Or child) from this happening. Im sorry you didnt
feel the need to protect your child however trying to blame it on
someone else is a little extreme.
" I dont know if my son is in danger cause of the chewing he has done
on this crib."
Perhaps a phone call to his pediatrician?? Or looking up some
information on the internet.

Why can't you use it until you get another one?? Did your baby naw the
crib down to a pile of saw dust?? You can probably get a plastic cover
for your crib at Lowes or Home Depot.

So...

It is a wooden crib, not that there is anything wrong with that... my
kids have wooden cribs, however a teething baby will use whatever they
can find to soothe their gums. Any wooden crib could start to come
apart if a baby is chewing on it all night. My friend's baby tore his
dad's leather belt when he chomped into it. I don't think that your
child chewing off pieces of the wood is enough to determine that the
crib is defective.

As a matter fact... after doing a little research, not only is it
common but there are additional items you can purchase to prevent your
child from chewing on the sides of the crib... I suggest you look
into a Crib sheild. A quick search brought this up...

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Crib+Rail+Cover+and+Breathable+Cri
b+Shield&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:off
icial&hs=RVm&sa=X&oi=froogle&ct=title
and another:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2233933


It seems to me that you are a first time mom. Congrats on your little
one. As a mom you need to understand that even though something has
been inspected and approved of for the use of your child, there are
always dangers. At the end of the day you are the one responsible for
their safety. Granted this isn't something that would think of when
you are buying a crib but the fact that it happened doesn't mean it is
the manufacturer's fault.

Good luck. If KMart/Heritage is willing to take care of this for you,
then that if fantastic. But if you get another wooden crib, it will
likely happen again. I suggest you get the crib shield or a metal
crib. :)

OK, so Heritage Collection is a KMART Private Label, meaning Heritage
Collection is only sold at Kmart. So when the manager when to look at
the box, the contact manufactur information would read Kmart, Troy MI
or Hoffman Estates, IL (Depending on when the box was printed)

Because the product is defective, Kmarts return policy allows you to
return their own products at any time with or without a receipt.
Without a receipt you will only get instore credit for the full retail
value (they will try to give you lowest selling price, but because it
is defective you are entilted to all your money back)

I would call the manager and let her know that you are returning the
product and would like compensation for paying a friend with a truck
to transport the item to the store. This is a loss prevention issue
(as it could result in a lawsuit against the store if the child were
to have been hospitalized in the future because of the crib), and LP
agents are allowed to compensate an amount (which I will not post the
exact amount), but it would be enough to cover one full tank of gas
for an average US truck.

I am a former Kmart asst manager and know that the manager telling her
she will contact her buyer was a poor decision. She should have put
you in touch with the Kmart incident response center as it is their
private label merchandise.

I am sorry to hear about what your little one did. My only thought
though is that lots of cribs are made out of wood. I would think that
if this was a safety problem then, they would not allow the market to
sell wooden cribs.

As for the selling of cheap imports. I hate to say it, but it's a
"you get what you pay for". People want cheap, but they want good.
Those two do not always mix. If you do not want them to buy junky
imports, that is fine. However, as a single mom with limited funds,
you will find it hard to pay the new, higher prices.

Anyways, I hope you are able to get a new crib for your little one so
they can sleep peacefully and safely.