Buying a Mattress (or a long-term purchase) for Kids with Samantha Radford from Evidence-Based Mommy — Episode 182

Today we’re talking about what to purchase for our kids when it’s a long-term purchase.

Today’s guest is Samantha Radford: She is the owner of Evidence-based Mommy (evidence-basedmommy.com) and has a PhD in exposure science, where she learns what chemicals we are exposed to and how those chemicals affect moms and young children.

Samantha has an article on mattresses right here, and a post on what plastic numbers are safe for baby.

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines if you’re looking to make life easier, get into some routines so you can enjoy your family more!

Producer: Drew Erickson

Check out my other parenting podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:00.170] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today we are talking about shopping for kids safely. We have an example, but it’s really just about making good choices for or kids at the store. So let’s untangle it.

[00:00:23.010] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast: pregnancy and parenting untangled. There’s no right answer for every family, but on this show, we hope to give you some ideas to make life simpler at your house. Life’s tangled just like my hair.

[00:00:44.670] – Hilary Erickson

Today’s guest is her, I think it’s her third time on the podcast. She has a PhD in exposure science, where she learns what chemicals that we are exposed to and how those affect moms and young children. I also heard that she is the reviewer of safety for things at the top, and she’s the mommy behind evidence based mommy. I want to introduce today’s guest, Samantha Radford.

[00:01:11.590] – Hilary Erickson

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[00:01:48.610] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, Samantha. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:01:51.500] – Samantha Radford

Hey, Hilary. Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here.

[00:01:54.320] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:01:54.760] – Hilary Erickson

Samantha’s episodes are super popular. I know you guys like the research and the science behind all these different things. So today we’re talking about buying a mattress, right?

[00:02:04.070] – Samantha Radford

Yes.

[00:02:06.070] – Hilary Erickson

I bet most of you are not buying a mattress, but the idea is we’re going to use buying a mattress as an idea to help us just shop better in general for our kids because I didn’t even think of the chemicals that were in the mattress I bought my 22 year old.

[00:02:20.890] – Samantha Radford

Right. And especially when you’re so you mentioned 22 year old. I imagine he maybe just out of college or something. You’re like, just get him a cheap one.

[00:02:31.310] – Hilary Erickson

No, I mean, when he was a kid. I don’t care. Whatever mattress he buys now is his own.

[00:02:36.040] – Samantha Radford

That’s his problem. Okay. But yes, with kids, a lot of times you’re like, just get the cheapest one because they’re little and their backs can take it and all that. But there’s actually a lot to think about.

[00:02:47.430] – Hilary Erickson

And it’s all about support at the store, right? When I went to babes ‘r us back in the day when there was babies ‘r us, yeah. I don’t know where people buy mattresses now. Probably online, but it was all about like, posturepedic, and I was kind of like, this baby don’t care.

[00:03:02.250] – Samantha Radford

Exactly. Right? Yeah. But there’s a whole other side to that, like you said, that we just totally don’t think about because flame retardants, for example, was a big thing. So have you ever noticed, like, any piece of furniture you have, I’m like looking around because I’m sure at the bottom of this chair there’s that big giant tag that has a bunch of words nobody ever reads.

[00:03:24.350] – Hilary Erickson

Yes, and when you buy Mickey ears at Disneyland, the tag is, like, down your back.

[00:03:29.090] – Samantha Radford

Yeah, that’s true. Gosh, that’s been a while, but well, that’s interesting. So that big, giant tag is for what’s called Prop 65, which is this law from California. And the law isn’t that particular chemicals aren’t allowed. It’s that they have to tell you if there’s chemicals that are suspected carcinogens or things that cause like, reproductive or fertility problems, which often go hand in hand. So anyways, like, any kind of furniture or mattresses or whatever that you get will have this tag. And what you’ll usually find, the tag also has to say whether or not there’s flame retardants. So, you’ll see, there will be like two little things that will either say, like, this mattress contains flame retardants or this mattress does not contain flame retardants, and there will be an X by the one that applies.

[00:04:24.280] – Hilary Erickson

I thought they all had to have flame retardants.

[00:04:26.620] – Samantha Radford

No, no, not anymore. So they have to be flame retardant in some other way. So they can either do that with chemical treatment, spraying this stuff on there that’s really not good for you and not good for your baby. And again, like we’ve talked about before, the problem is when something affects your baby, it has much more long term impact than it does once you’re in adulthood. Because it’s the butterfly effect, right. When you’ve got all these systems just now developing, you’re going to cause huge problems. Whereas with us, these chemicals can cause some problems, but it’s not going to be quite as far reaching.

[00:05:05.070] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:05:05.920] – Hilary Erickson

So if you just like laid on bricks, those would be naturally flame retardant, right, that’s true.

[00:05:12.930] – Samantha Radford

Wool is also flame resistant, I think. I’m trying to remember off the top of my head, all of that’s going out the window. But polyurethane foam, for example, which is what lots of mattresses are made of, is highly flammable.

[00:05:26.030] – Hilary Erickson

Okay.

[00:05:26.970] – Samantha Radford

But the thing is, it’s cheap, it’s easy to make. So why don’t we just douse it in flame retardants? But if you have usually these more like crunchy people mattresses that are made out of other stuff, it tends to not catch fire as easily. And so that’s why they don’t have to use flame retardants on that.

[00:05:47.460] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Okay.

[00:05:48.190] – Hilary Erickson

So something I’m noticing as we’re having this conversation is as a parent, maybe they don’t market mattresses this way anymore, but I was saying that as a parent, when I went through. It was all about the support because that’s how I buy a mattress. Right, right. I want it to feel right. I want it to be cushy. A baby’s mattress should not be cushy, by the way. They need to have a nice firm mattress, but they’re selling it like I’m using it for me. Right, right.

[00:06:14.260] – Samantha Radford

Yeah. And I mean, maybe that’s changed some now because, like you said, your kids are 20 and so old.

[00:06:20.940] – Hilary Erickson

I am an older parent for sure.

[00:06:23.070] – Samantha Radford

Okay, that’s fine. My oldest one is nine. And yeah, I’m already feeling like it’s interesting. There’s things that are different now than even in 2013. But anyways, I feel like there’s a lot of changes as far as you’ll see certifications on mattresses. The one that you might see a lot of times is called certipure. So they’ll say this is made with certipure foam, which is good. So we were talking about flame retardants being in polyurethane foam. If it’s certipure certified, that means there’s not going to be flame retardants in there and it’s going to be missing some of those other chemicals that are really a problem.

[00:07:01.930] – Samantha Radford

But the trick with that is that particular certification only counts for the foam. So if you’ve got, like, the foam is safe, but then it’s got a vinyl cover on that because vinyl is waterproof, which we like for baby mattresses. Right. It’s still problematic because vinyl has all these toxic chemicals that’ll off gas and get into your breathing airspace. Because, again, if you’re laying on a mattress and a baby’s on a baby’s sleeping for like 17 to 20 hours a day when they’re newborns, then their face is just right above the surface where these chemicals are off gassing right into the breathing space.

[00:07:39.510] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:07:40.470] – Hilary Erickson

I’ve ruined so many kids.

[00:07:42.530] – Samantha Radford

It’s fine. It’ll still be fine. And that’s always like we’ve talked about before, that’s kind of the hard part of having these conversations is like, my goal is not to stress people out and make them think like, oh my gosh, I’ve ruined my kids.

[00:07:58.230] – Hilary Erickson

Or Sally, who’s listening, who just bought a mattress and spent a good chunk of money on it, can’t get a return. We’re not saying it’s time to return the mattress. This is just saying, let’s think a little bit more before we buy next time.

[00:08:10.690] – Samantha Radford

Yeah. So, I mean, some sort of pure mattresses are just fine. You just have to be aware of, like, all the other components. Greenguard gold is a good certification for mattresses because greenguard gold means that the organic volatile chemicals or volatile organic chemicals, the VOCs that are coming off into the baby’s breathing space, like I said, that that’s really low. So greenguard gold will not have many of those chemicals, which is a good thing.

[00:08:39.940] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. So is there a place that people can look up this type of thing? How would be the best way to research it? Let’s say I was looking for a mattress today. Where would you tell me to go figure it out?

[00:08:51.200] – Samantha Radford

I mean, I have an article. I have a couple of articles.

[00:08:54.690] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:08:54.970] – Hilary Erickson

And we will definitely link to her articles. Okay, but let’s say I want to buy a sippy cup, right? Because BPA, right. There’s just all these different things also, like flame retardants on pajamas, right? When you were saying that, don’t they require them to be flame retardant?

[00:09:12.740] – Samantha Radford

So again, they change because people are becoming more savvy. Thank God, you know, that these things are, like, not okay. And so now you’ll notice that for little kids, jammies are either if they’re cotton, they’re nice and tight to the body, or if it’s like a little gallon, it’s going to be like polyester or something. And that’s because polyester won’t catch on fire.

[00:09:33.960] – Hilary Erickson

Well, or it’ll just melt to your skin, like plastic.

[00:09:37.280] – Samantha Radford

Right. But you won’t catch on fire. And that’s what we’re yeah. So they get around it by so cotton does ignite, but if you have it close to the body, you’re going to have worse things going on, I suppose.

[00:09:52.150] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. So this is why I always had to buy my kids pajamas two sizes too big, because otherwise they were like, Mummy, I can’t get my arm through.

[00:09:59.230] – Samantha Radford

Right. Yeah. So don’t your kids, luckily did not catch on fire, but they’re supposed to be snug like that on purpose. So let’s see. You mentioned the pajamas sippy cups.

[00:10:14.430] – Hilary Erickson

Just like sippy cups. Do you know when you’re trying to check out? Because now there’s BPAA. There’s BPAB. There’s probably BP.

[00:10:21.130] – Samantha Radford

Well, Bps. Bps. No, you’re good. So that’s another one of those things. I’m in this all the time. So I’m a scientific consultant for a big company that sells baby products, and I’ve got the PhD background, so I’m seeing all this stuff all the time.

[00:10:38.730] – Samantha Radford

So I have a pretty good mental checklist of where regulations are and how things have changed. That’s going to be harder if you’re not in that all the time. But what I will say for bottles and sippy cups, don’t get anything used, particularly 2013 or earlier, because the regulations were different then. So now they’re not allowed to use a particular classic called polycarbonate or polycarbonate because that is what typically has BPA and Bps and all that kind of stuff.

[00:11:10.440] – Samantha Radford

You’ll see that and you can look at the recycling code on the bottom, but you’ll see that bottles now are made out of something called polypropylene. And just with the way that polypropylene is flexible and all that kind of stuff, you don’t need BPA or Bps to make it do what it’s supposed to, like, as far as the physical makeup of the bottle. So that’s what bottles and sippy cups are often made up now.

[00:11:33.200] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:11:33.680] – Hilary Erickson

Do you have an article on that kind of stuff on your website?

[00:11:37.010] – Samantha Radford

Yes.

[00:11:38.350] – Hilary Erickson

Obviously, you just go to your website, which will link what’s the URL again, evidencebased.

[00:11:43.580] – Samantha Radford

Evidence-basedmommy.com.

[00:11:45.220] – Hilary Erickson

And it’s all one word.

[00:11:46.320] – Samantha Radford

Well, it’s actually evidence-basedmommy.com, so I need to work on that. That’s the whole thing. You know how that goes.

[00:11:54.340] – Hilary Erickson

So just go on there and search because Samantha has, she’s done the research, she’ll look it up for you so you can just go to the store and buy something and feel a little bit better that it’s good, at least for a few years. Because on baby number three for me that was in 2009, I switched out all my bottles. But clearly if I had a baby, now I’d have to buy even new bottles.

[00:12:13.950] – Samantha Radford

Oh, gosh, yeah, yeah. Well, and that’s I’m trying to remember the year for Crib mattresses and stuff too, because a lot of that has changed because again, they’ve realized like maybe flame retardants aren’t good for children and so don’t go for old used Crib mattresses. Which, I mean, I get that that’s like a great way to save money, but if you can avoid it unless you see like that little tag tells you whether or not there’s flame retardant, I think that’s what it is. They started requiring that tag in like 2014 or something like that. Now they do require it, so you can at least tell. But yeah, try to avoid used stuff even within the past… Gosh, that’s less than ten years ago. I mean, we’re learning so much and things are changing all the time.

[00:13:00.410] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:13:00.920] – Hilary Erickson

So I think what I’m learning here is that, well, first off, we thought the biggest problem was kids getting set on fire when perhaps the bigger problem was like all the things they’re inhaling.

[00:13:12.570] – Samantha Radford

Well, that sounds dramatic, but it’s a cost benefit analysis. And it’s hard because it’s like the one kid who, God forbid is in a house fire, maybe that would make a difference. But thousands and thousands of other kids are getting like the toxic effects from these chemicals. So like, where’s the trade off? And I mean, that’s kind of what they have to do when they’re making legislation or they can listen to lobbyists and all that too, which is a whole nother we won’t touch that. But it’s just hard to figure out the best way to go about a lot of these things.

[00:13:46.700] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:13:47.160] – Hilary Erickson

And luckily you’re just going to have to read the labels, which is so boring and not very fun. Right, but at least they’re labeling it.

[00:13:53.900] – Samantha Radford

Yeah. And I mean, even now they have crib mattresses. Like at Target. That’s Green Guard Gold certified. So it’s, you know, a lot of times like the really high end ones, like they’re great and they have a lot of those like more certifications that I like for various reasons I won’t get into. But if you’re, you know, just like if your bare minimum is like Green Guard Gold or maybe Cert of Pure, as long as everything else is okay too, you can get that somewhere locally. Without too much hassle.

[00:14:26.880] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:14:27.320] – Hilary Erickson

So just put a little bit more effort into these things that are in your kids’mouths all the time, I think, and in their space, their airspace.

[00:14:35.450] – Samantha Radford

Yeah.

[00:14:36.710] – Hilary Erickson

All right. Good advice. Good advice for us throughout our parenting. Maybe I should do better with my guest room, too. Sure. I’ve killed so many people at this point. All right. Thanks for coming on.

[00:14:48.480] – Samantha Radford

Yeah, no, you’re okay. They’ll be fine. They were only there for, like, a couple of nights.

[00:14:52.980] – Hilary Erickson

That’s true.

[00:14:53.980] – Hilary Erickson

All right.

[00:14:54.430] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for coming on, Samantha.

[00:14:55.940] – Samantha Radford

Yeah, thank you.

[00:14:57.150] – Hilary Erickson

Okay.

[00:14:57.540] – Hilary Erickson

I mostly want to stress that we didn’t do this podcast to make you freak out about the mattress that you already have. I really just want us to think a little bit more broadly. We’re making shopping decisions for our kids, myself included. Like I said, we didn’t think about any of this back in 2000 when I had my baby. So it’s just more knowledge can be more power when we’re making a purchase, especially purchases that are going to be in our kids mouths, in their breathing space around them all the time. I think it’s so important.

[00:15:26.970] – Hilary Erickson

Stay tuned. Next week’s episode is going to be when you’re afraid of how long labor is going to take. So stay tuned.

[00:15:33.890] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. The Pulling Curls Podcast grows when you share us on social media or leave a review. If you do, please tag us so that we can share and send you a virtual hug, which, frankly, is my favorite kind of hugging. Until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.