Babies chew. Its what they do, and we were suprised to learn how productive that chewing can be the day we ran our hand along the edge of a used crib at a garage sale and came away with splinters.
We recently saw a Gummi Crib Rail in action, and they really are a great safety measure for babies that chew. Some cribs come with built in teething rails now, but most don't, and we have often wondered how safe it is to be chewing on the unprotected wood edges of crib rails.
Gummi Rails are 50" long and can be trimmed to fit most cribs. The site states that they take 10-15 minutes to install, but we asked someone who did install them on an older crib and our field reporter says 30-45 minutes to do the actual install - longer than advertised, but still a reasonable amount of time to us.
They are opaque, but keep in mind that installing these will mute the colour of your crib rails, and we would like to see what they look like on a darker-finish crib. However, most safety related baby items aren't necessarily designed for looks, and for $14.95, Gummi Rails look like a good investment for a chewy baby.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I loved these.
Our son wanted to do the same thing. It looked like a lot of our friends just let their kids do it, but you could see the damage to the crib and I could only visualize the paint or varnish being ingested by the child.
So, a trip to the local baby store revealed a similar product to these (except without the adhesive) and they were perfect. As my son has grown, he has figured out how to pull them off when he is bored in bed, but they snap on easily again. The adhesive would probably solve that problem.
Not every kid is a beaver. My son (2 1/2) never once even looked at the crib rail as a chew toy. I have a crib that has a guard but I have never needed it- it looks just like it did when we bought it. I do believe that they are a good idea though-
My oldest son chewed through his teether rail and it cut the inside of his mouth. I removed it and he proceeded to chew on the wood. At first I cringed when I saw the teeth marks on his custom-made crib but now, three years later, I cherish every single mark left behind.
Funny though, my youngest child who now uses the crib has never once even tried chewing it.