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Design, applied to children’s beds
A children’s bed should be a tool for them to learn, not a cage
Low-tech innovation is necessary in children’s furniture
Designing for toddlers and children is very fascinating but challenging. Designers and parents need to understand what children need and like, based on their nonverbal behavior and feedback.
As a designer and parent, it was interesting and disturbing to find out that most of the furniture designed for small children take into account primarily the parents’ needs and concerns. Safety is obviously a very important matter when designing for babies and kids, but usability should also be a priority.
Cribs and beds for babies are good examples. The vast majority available on the market is based on what parents want: being assured that their child cannot escape from it.
Is this really the best solution for babies?
I started to dip into the topic when my wife and me had to buy a crib for our six months old baby. We went around furniture shops for children. All cribs we saw were basically very similar, with just some differences in material and price.
During one of our visits my wife asked to the shop assistant if they had Montessori-style beds (more on this later). They had one. It was indeed different from — and much more expensive then — the others. I have to give credit to my wife for this: she pushed me to research the relation between the Montessori guidelines and furniture design.
Maria Montessori was an Italian doctor who basically revolutionized the traditional approach to education. Two of the main pillars of her method is “freedom within limits” and the “discovery model”: children learn by exploring without useless constraints and direct instruction.
Why should a baby crib be designed like a cage?
A Montessori bed is a place where babies can play and sleep safely but where they can also jump in and out autonomously, without the help or direct intervention of an adult. A traditional crib is basically a cage for children.
