Standard - Children's Nightwear

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

Standard information

The standard applies to all children's nightwear (from size 00 to 14) and to some daywear (knitted all-in-one garments from size 00-2). It does not include T-shirts or leggings.

The 2008 regulations declare AS/ NZS 1249:2003 Children's nightwear and limited daywear having reduced fire hazard (with variations as modified by Amendment A 2008) to be a product safety standard.

Categories

The standard creates four categories of acceptable garments for nightwear:

Category One: garments made from fabrics with low flame propagation properties;

Category Two: garments, which because of their design, are less likely to catch alight and if they do, the spread of flames is reduced because of the design features;

Category Three: all-in-one style garments made predominantly from knitted fabrics, in sizes 00 to 2;

Category Four: garments that are assigned a high flammability rating.

The standard establishes burn tests for each category. For Categories 2, 3 and 4 it also sets out design/ dimension specifications. Garments that do not meet the requirements of any of these categories are considered to have a very high flammability rating and are therefore unacceptable for supply as nightwear.

Category 1 must have a white label stating 'LOW FIRE DANGER' .

Orange Label

Category 2 and 3 must have an orange label stating "caution not heat or flame resistant".

Red Label

Category 4 garments must have a red label with a fire emblem, stating 'WARNING - HIGH FIRE DANGER - KEEP WAY FROM FIRE'.

Enforcing the standard

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

Purchasing the standard

AS/NZS 1249:2003 Children's Nightwear & Limited Daywear Having Reduced Fire Hazard 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 1 August 2008.  However, the 2005 regulations remained in effect until 1 April 2009 to allow for a transition period for manufacturers, importers, suppliers and retailers to comply with the new standard.

Children's Nightwear – New Labels – Information for Retailers

All children's nightwear needs to have a fire-risk label on it. From 1 April 2009, a red label means high fire danger, and a new orange label is a warning to choose close-fitting options. Other garments, such as those made of more fire resistant materials like wool blends, can still use the Low Fire Danger label.

Some of these new orange labels were allowed to be in a sticker form while they were being introduced but only for a 3 month period from 1 April to 1 July 2009. This period has now elapsed and the sticker form is no longer acceptable.

You can add your company logo at the top left corner of the sign.

Advice for parents

Whatever kind of nightwear a child is wearing, fire is still a serious risk. You can help parents choose safe nightwear by highlighting to parents to:

• always keep children a metre away from the heater
• choose snug-fitting nightwear
• remember no nightwear is heat or flame resistant.

Parents should be made aware that if a child is wearing high fire danger nightwear they should stay far away from the fire or heater. But even a "low danger" label doesn’t mean there is no danger. Nightwear that say "low fire danger" can still catch fire if the child is too close.