Baby Sleepwear: Snug vs. Flame Retardant?
Random learning of the day…
Baby is currently 7 months and is long for footie pajamas his size, so a month or so ago I bought some 9m-12m Carter’s footie pajamas. I was kind of annoyed because I wanted to find the same style as his previous ones, but the listings all stopped after the 6m-9m size and it was harder to find larger ones, but I did eventually find some separate listings that were similar.
When they got here and I saw the “Not flame retardant, must be snug fit” tag I was like ??? but didn’t have a chance to look it up then so 
Baby’s’s got dry skin and a bit of eczema lately, so we’ve been doing full-body lotion and then having so much trouble getting his snug pajamas on
Went down a random rabbit hole today and discovered:
- The regulation about baby sleepwear needing to be flame retardant or snug fit only starts at 9m because babies don’t move much before then
- Snug fit is supposedly better because less oxygen between the pajamas and the baby makes it harder to catch on fire and flame retardant chemicals are bad and can cause cancer / lower IQ
- The regulation came to be because baby cowboy chaps made of rayon kept catching on fire and killing babies (???!?!?!)
- Some people believe the tobacco industry was behind blaming fabric for this (rather than because of smoking and having matches/lighters around)
- It’s unclear if it was the flame retardant clothing or other changes in general that reduced baby burn rates (better burn centers in hospitals, changing baby pajama styles to be less loose, lower smoking rates so less matches and lighters to start fires) but the regulations have stuck around
- There are also regulations on how long baby pajamas are allowed to be, which makes me wonder what age this regulation stops applying, because they have to get taller at some point…
There is a lot more baby-related stuff I want to write about, but I figured I would start with this short learning of the day.
Links to where I found the above info:
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