Safety & cleaning
The unglamorous part, written out in full
“We clean everything” is not an answer. This is the actual process every crib goes through between your family and the last one, in order, including the bits that cost us money.
- 1
Stripped at pickup
Sheet and mattress protector come off in the house and go straight into a sealed laundry bag in the van. They never share space with clean stock. This is the step busy operations skip, and it is the one that matters most.
- 2
Inspected before cleaning
Cleaning hides damage, so inspection comes first: every slat for cracks, the folding hinges for play, all hardware for tightness, the casters, the mattress support for sag, the finish for chips down to bare wood. Anything that fails comes out of service.
- 3
Sand out, then wash
This is LBI, so every crib comes back with sand in it. Hinges, caster housings and the underside of the mattress support get vacuumed and brushed before anything wet happens, because wet sand is grit paste and grit paste scratches finish.
- 4
Food-safe sanitizer, full contact time
The frame is washed and given the sanitizer's actual stated contact time, not a wipe and a hopeful nod. Never bleach, because it degrades the finish and leaves residue exactly where a teething baby puts their mouth.
- 5
Fragrance-free laundry
Sheets and protectors are washed hot in fragrance-free, dye-free detergent. Babies with eczema are common and a lavender-scented sheet is a gamble taken with somebody else's child.
- 6
Dried completely, then checked again
Everything dries fully before the crib goes back together. It is set back up, checked against the inspection list one more time, and sheeted, so it leaves us in the state it will arrive in.
Changeover day
How a crib turns around in a morning
Long Beach Island changes over on Saturdays, with the whole island emptying and refilling in a single day, so a crib that comes back in the morning frequently goes out again that afternoon.
That works because the cleaning does not happen in a driveway between two stops. Pickups run early, the gear comes back to us and is stripped, inspected, washed and dried while the van is out on the rest of the route, and deliveries go out later in the day. We carry enough spare linen and mattress protectors that a fresh, fully dried set is always ready, and nothing damp ever leaves.
If a particular crib cannot be turned around properly in time, you get a different one. We would rather move a unit than rush one.
Standards
What the crib meets
- Fixed sides. Drop-side cribs have been illegal to sell or resell in the US since 2011, and we would not own one
- Slat spacing under the 2⅜″ federal limit
- Mattress fitted so no more than two adult fingers fit at any edge
- JPMA-certified model meeting current CPSC full-size crib standards
- Fleet checked against the CPSC recall list
- Two mattress heights, set to the lower one the moment a baby can pull to stand
The definitive source is the CPSC crib safety center.
At your house
What we check before we leave
Setup is not just standing the crib up. Before we go we look at where the crib is standing: blind and curtain cords in reach, window air-con blowing across the mattress, lamps and chargers a standing toddler could grab, and anything the crib could be pushed into.
If we see a better wall, we will say so. Nobody has ever minded being asked, and we will happily move it.
Cleaned, checked, and waiting
The calendar shows real units, so what it says is free is free.