Bedside crib safety?

[BlueberryPancake21]

I'm getting a bit confused by bedside cribs and what is safe... we spoke to an advisor at a baby shop (video call of course!) about cribs and there are three things they told us that I'm not sure about. Are they just trying to sell me the product that they stock or are these real concerns?

1 - they said that when you're asleep the side has to be up to be safe. With the chicco magic I can see that it goes up and down easily but a lot of the others seem to be fixed in an "up" or "down" position once attached to the bed. Are they actually saying that to be safe you have to detach the crib, put the side down, get baby out and then do the whole thing in reverse every time you feed them? That seems to make the whole thing pointless...

2 - They told us that new rules are coming in for 2021 so there has to be a lip on the crib when open and the mattress on the bedside crib isn't the same height as your bed (so snuzpod 3 = non-compliant, snuzpod 4 is compliant). I'm struggling to find any references to this or which cribs currently available meet this requirement. Has anyone else come across this?

3 - They told us that ventilation is extremely important for safety and showed us a crib (snuzpod again) with ventilation on two sides + the base of the crib. Most of the cribs seem to only have ventilation on one side and none on the base. Is this actually an issue?

I'm probably overthinking this but am genuinely confused and don't know if I'm just being sold to or if these are genuine things we should worry about.

Hmmmm it doesn’t seem quite right, but things change all the time. I used a bedside crib the original chicco next to me, and it never felt unsafe and I left it permanently attached to our bed with the side down. Have you looked at the lullaby trust?

Companies are forever changing their models to fit with the "latest guidelines" perhaps I'm cynical but I bought a snuzpod 3 two years ago and plan on using it for my second baby and I find it hard to believe it is is no longer safe. Can't help but think it's partly a ploy to squash the second hand market and make sure more people are buying new?!

Thanks for your comments! I think there's probably a lot of truth in the marketing thing and there's clearly a lot of money in getting new parents to fork out on stuff they might not need.

Lullaby trust didn't have anything specific on their website so I emailed them and they actually came back pretty quickly to say that they can't comment on individual products but sides should be up while parents are sleeping. I think that limits my choice quite significantly!

I do realise you can't eliminate all risk in life but it seems like where there is a safer and less safe option with otherwise similar benefits and price I should go with that.

Every bed frame is different so the most important thing is that the way it attaches is safe for your particular set up. The unsafe situation is a gap baby could get stuck for instance. The safest option is a cot next to your bed with the side up, that's indisputable but if (like I did) this isn't going to work for you, look at the measurements very carefully for installation. For the record we simply co slept, was more common then I think.

Apologies for commenting on an old thread but I'm also getting confused with these things! On point 2 does that mean that the crib mattress should be lower or higher than the bed mattress? Our bed is ridiculously tall and only the Snuzpod 4 will go high enough to match our bed but if this is no longer a requirement it's less of an issue