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Magic Bumpers: An Alternative to Bed Rails for Toddlers



If you have kids, then no doubt beds, night time and sleep are top-of-mind issues in your home.  It starts when they're born.  Do you co-sleep?  Do you start them in a bassinett?  When do you move them to a crib?  When do you move them out of a crib?  Toddler bed or straight to an adult bed?  Single or double?  Railings or no railings?  And all this may be moot if your kids (and you) barely sleep at all, or if everyone just piles into one bed.

In our home there has always been a 'no kids in our bed' rule, which works well for all of us.  It's always been this way, so our kids have rarely ever even considered the notion of co-sleeping with us.  Thank goodness, because the few times it has happened, no one sleeps much at all.

Little A moved to a grown-up bed a while ago, but she has continued to insist on having railings.  A few months ago we coaxed her into giving up the one on the wall-side of her bed, but she has refused to give up the one on the outside of her bed.  It's not a big deal to me, but it drives Adam nuts because it makes making and stripping her bed so challenging, and since she recently gave up wearing pull-ups at night, her not-so-infrequent pee pee accidents are a bitch to clean up because of the darn railing.

Because she sleeps without any railings at my in-laws and when we travel, it shouldn't be a big deal, but she has stubbornly insisted she still needs that railing.  I was mentioning this to my friend and she told me about Magic Bumpers, which she bought for her son, who is in Little A's daycare class.  I immediately purchased them online and they arrived 2 days later.  They are essentially foam blocks that fit snugly under the fitted sheet.



When I saw the box I was initially outraged, thinking they sent the wrong thing because the box was too small.  When I opened it up, I realized they compress the foam.  You have to leave them for a day or 2 to expand to their full size.  Kinda cool! 

Admittedly, Little A was very skeptical and threw a small fit the first night, insisting she could still fall out of her bed with the bumpers.  But she didn't and by the second night she'd gotten comfortable with them.  The best part, is it is now far easier to make and unmake her bed!  I wish we'd discovered these a long time ago, because they are really versatile.  You can take them with you when you travel, you can use them for co-sleeping, on toddler beds, even for infants to create a safe sleeping space for them.  Very cool, and very affordable!!

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