Mother-of-three warns parents over crib after her six-month-old baby slipped down gap

A mother-of-three has warned parents about the dangers of a bedside crib after her six-month-old baby slipped down a gap.

Leanne Cregg, from Burnley, Lancashire, claims the Baby Elegance Bedside Travel Cot – which offers parents the option to attach the crib to a bed using a safety strap –  has a serious design flaw.

The 35-year-old woke up in the middle of the night alarmed and panicked when her baby Freya slipped down a gap between the cot and the bed. 

But Baby Elegance claim the crib was not assembled in line with guidance in its instruction manual. 

While Freya was unharmed – and Leanne’s partner Gareth Hunt, 37 – was able to get her out immediately, Ms Cregg is convinced that her daughter could have been seriously hurt.

She said: ‘At the end of the day we were extremely lucky. There could be someone out there going to sleep thinking their baby is safe in the crib when they are not.

‘I don’t want to say it but it could end up with a dead baby, something horrible could happen. It’s scary.’

Ms Cregg and Mr Hunt were asleep in their bed in the early hours on Monday when Gareth woke up suddenly.

Mr Hunt leaned over to check on Freya – who was in the cot beside their bed – but they couldn’t find her.

Ms Cregg said: ‘I woke up because Gareth was rummaging through the covers.

‘I asked him what was wrong and he asked where Freya was, I told him she was in the cot but he said she wasn’t.

‘I leaned over and I couldn’t see her either. It was quite surreal, she was in her cot when I went to sleep.

‘It was just pure panic, you can’t quite put into words how you feel.’

Thankfully Mr Hunt saw that Freya had managed to drop into a gap which had opened between the crib mattress and the bed.

Freya was fine but, after careful checks and consultation with the store which sold the crib, Ms Cregg is sure the product has a serious design flaw.

‘She could have suffocated or been crushed. Anything could have happened, this could have been a completely different story.’

Smyths store in Blackburn, who sold the crib to Leanne, have offered her a full refund and taken the Baby Elegance product from their shelves.

Ms Cregg says the store did everything right but thinks Ireland-based company Baby Elegance should reconsider their design.

She said: ‘They really need to have an overhaul and look at the design. They need to make sure there is no loose fabric which the baby can sleep down, it isn’t safe.’

Baby Elegance said the crib is safe and had not been set up in the correct way.

A spokesperson for the company – which supplies more than 600 products to 150 retailers across the continent – said: ‘The reason it is doing what it is doing is because it is not meant to be used in that way.

‘It has built in harness straps that stop the loose fabric on the side of the crib but the crib needs to be snug up against the side of the bed, what the customer is demonstrating isn’t possible when it is against the bed.

‘Also, the customer does not have the mattress connected to the base with the velcro straps as required in the manual. These straps stop the base from lifting as it is shown on the video so this really is not a reflection of how the product works.

‘We have full safety reports for the product for Ireland and the UK.’