Do I need a new mattress?

[AnnaK]

Ds will be two shortly and I planned to put him into a cotbed with his old mattress but it turns out that cotbeds are bigger than his current cot. (New baby due in 2 months!) So... can I put new baby on old matress and buy new matress for cotbed or do I need a new one for the new baby? (The general idea is to keep ds in a cot for as long a s poss!)

we used the same mattress for ds2 in the cot
aired and everything

The old mattress will be fine as long as it has'nt sagged in the middle.

I've read some research from New Zealand that links used mattresses to a higher SIDS risk - I think its because of the build up of chemicals in a mattress over time. www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/sprott/

But it also says if you use an 'approved' (as in approved by the Dr who did this research)mattress cover (its called the Babe Safe Mattress Cover - search Google and you can buy it online) then its ok to reuse the mattress.

Hope that helps.

I Just read an article from that page again myself and it seems than maybe in the UK the mattresses don't contain the harmful chemicals? I'm not sure about this, but have a read yourself, and maybe check the lables on your old mattress.

I Just read an article from that page again myself and it seems than maybe in the UK the mattresses don't contain the harmful chemicals? I'm not sure about this, but have a read yourself, and maybe check the lables on your old mattress.

I used the same mattress for all of my 3.

Think there was research done since on chemicals and the relation to SIDS but don't know how valid that research is.

There have been some threads on Baby Safe covers in the past.

Thanks for that, I will get searching. I originally bought a matress from Mothercare with a removable washable cover which I have removed and washed. Should be quite clean and nothing will have got through to the mattress itself.

I used the same cot mattress for both of my 2, with a 4 year interval. Just washed the cover and aired it well.