Cot (furniture)

A cot is a small bed (called a crib in American English) specifically for babies and infants.

Cots are specifically designed to restrict the occupant to the bed, by having sides too high for a baby to climb and providing no footholds. The thinking behind this design is that if a child awakens and isn't restricted to the bed, then they will roam instead of returning to sleep (creating sleep problems for their parents).

Placing a child into a cot puts strain onto an adults back, so the cot may feature:

• a mattress that can be in a raised position until the child is able to sit upright, and
• a dropside, a side which lowers to ease the process of putting the child into the cot, but can be raised again to restore the integrity of the enclosure.

Cots can be stationary or portable (portacots). Portable cots generally don't feature a dropside.

Design standards for cots include considerations such as preventing hand and head entrapment. Research has shown that the cot mattress influences SIDS outcomes; a new mattress lowers SIDS risk.

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