Standard - Children's Nightwear

The Product Safety Standards (Children's Nightwear & Limited Daywear Having Reduced Fire Hazard) Regulations 2005, and The Product Safety Standards (Children's Nightwear & Limited Daywear Having Reduced Fire Hazard) Regulations 2008

All fabric is flammable and the use of domestic heating at night time poses an additional hazard.

Regulations in the form of Product Safety Standards for children's nightclothes were put in place in 1987.

The mandatory requirements were established to reduce the risk of serious injury and death to children as a result of accidents involving children's nightwear and fire through:

• excluding from the market children's nightwear that presents an unacceptable level of fire risk
• requiring garment design restrictions where the fabric poses a high flammability risk, and
• ensuring appropriate marking and labelling of the fire hazard of children's nightwear to allow consumers to make informed choices.

The regulations declare national standard AS/ NZS 1249 Children's nightwear and limited daywear having reduced fire hazard (with variations), as modified by Amendment A 2008, to be a product safety standard.

AS/NZS 1249:1999 represented a major change in the nightwear standard through its introduction of a separate category of garment – the all-in-one. This brought into the coverage of the standard many garments which before could have been classified as either daywear or nightwear, and some garments made from knitted fabric which were more obviously daywear only. The revision, AS/NZS 1249:2003, has attempted to clarify this situation and to remove from the coverage of the standard those types of all-in-one garments which by their design, and the weight of fabric used, are unlikely to be worn as nightwear.

Amendment A 2008 gives new labelling requirements to those garments that are made of higher fire risk fabric but are styled to reduce fire risk. These new labels remove an area of public misperception.

Enforcing the Standard

The Commerce Commission is responsible for enforcing this standard and has published some guidelines.

Purchasing the Standard

AS/NZS 1249:2003 The Product Safety Standards (Children's Nightwear & Limited Daywear Having Reduced Fire Hazard) Regulations 2008 can be purchased from Standards New Zealand, see their website for details.

Note

The new Product Safety Standard for children’s nightwear came into force on 30 June 2008. However, the 2005 regulation will remain in effect until 1 April 2009 to allow for a transition period for manufacturers, importers, suppliers and retailers to comply with the new standard.