We agree with many of you that the NY Times article we blogged about yesterday did a lot more confirming than clarifying. Yes, it's confusing trying to weed through all of the information on organic crib mattresses. That we already knew! So, we're sharing a few of the more helpful resources we found from our own past research.
Organic Mattresses Part 2...
• First, some more info on why traditional mattresses may be harmful from Babble.
• Next, we found the following research from A Child Grows In Brooklyn helpful. The author narrowed down her choices to a few brands. We started there.
• We ended up investigating the following sites and what they had to offer:
1. Tiny Bird Organics
2. Ecobaby
3. Dax Stores
4. Naturepedic
We should also mention we found a lot of discussion on mattresses from Ikea. It seems in other countries, flame retardants are not required by law, but mattresses in the US do have a "natural" flame retardant. To sum up what we found, the mattresses from Ikea are a much more affordable option for those who can't spend the money for an organic mattress.
We were leaning towards the mattress from Ecobaby, but in the end we decided on the No Compromise Organic Cotton Classic mattress from Naturepedic for two reasons:
1. We were expecting our baby in a matter of days and needed a quick delivery. (Yes, we were debating/researching until the last minute)
2. We decided having the waterproof surface of the Naturepedic mattress versus the wool surface of the others might come in handy. We found another review from Safe Mama and we were convinced. We used the coupon code for free shipping on her site.
Cool Mom Picks has a review of another mattress, the Natural Mat mattress, that we did not investigate. You might want to check that one out.
We like the mattress from Naturepedic. It's extremely firm and fits snugly into our Gulliver crib. There was no odor whatsoever when we received it, and we were very happy with the quality overall.
We can also add that, due to some strange unforseen circumstances, we had to move leaving all of our furniture behind and start from scratch a week after baby was born. So, we also got to test out the mattress from Ikea since we couldn't afford to re-buy the organic mattress. The Ikea mattress is definitely not as firm and caves in in the middle which we don't like, but there was little to no odor when we bought it. For the money, it does the job well and baby seems fairly comfortable on it.
Hope that helps!
Comments (8)
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Thanks Julia, this is really helpful. I'm sorry to hear about your earlier situation.
view LaneC's profile
We also bought the No Compromise Organic Mattress and we love it. It fits well into our crib and had no odor to it when it arrived. To get my son used to sleeping in his crib we had naps together with the mattress on the floor before we put him in his crib and it is really compfortable! I had some good naps on it!
view lulu557's profile
When my daughter moved into a twin bed, we got her a mattress from Keetsa: http://keetsa.com/
They don't make crib mattresses, unfortunately. But we love the mattress and the people at the store in SF were really helpful and friendly. And the mattress comes in a box that fit into our trunk!
view klin's profile
Any ideas for a DIY crib mattress? Perhaps using organic cotton or wool batting? Has anyone tried this?
view Sarah Rose's profile
I am a concerned about the sleep positioner shown in the above photo. I have heard these are very unsafe and consumer reports even features an article and video on their website about a couple that lost one of their twins due to suffocation by a sleep positioner. Please think about changing this photo or give a warning about them. Thank you.
view Tera's profile
We bought the sleep positioner in the photo above. It was the most useless piece of junk ever. Baby just slid on down it every time we tried to use it. Plus it had a funky smell and was probably some nasty off-gassing petroleum foam.
view JudiAU's profile
We bought the Obasan Terranova 2000 direct from the manufacturer.
We also had to buy an IKEA Gulliver crib and mattress here in Europe before our sea shipment (with the other bed) came. Ours never sagged in the middle, but still prefer the firmness and quality of the Obasan product.
We had another Obasan mattress custom made for our antique bassinet and were very happy with that too.
view mschatelaine's profile
Has anyone tried the Sealy Soybean Foam-Core Crib Mattress?
http://www.babyearth.com/sealy-sealy-soybean-foam-core-crib-mattress.html
view jss's profile