DIY Crib Teething Rail Cover Tutorial

Last year, my mom gave us a gorgeous crib for our son. It converts into a toddler bed and later a full size bed. Recently, it has been obvious that we might soon end up with a lot of teeth marks in the foot board as he has discovered it is perfect for teething:

Wanting to protect it, I started searching online for quilted teething crib rail covers. I found only two options and quickly realized they would not work for our crib due to it’s wide vertical rail. Both covers have a tie in the center.

This was also a problem with the bumper that came with our bedding set. It too had center ties that were not long enough to reach around the vertical center rails on the front and back:

That ended up being okay since we chose to purchase a Breathable Bumper to use instead. Thus the original bumper ended up in the top of our son’s closet where it sat until I began thinking of ways to make my own teething rail cover.

Last week, I pulled the bumper out and began using my seam ripper to carefully pull apart a third of it. The reason behind tearing apart a third versus the entire bumper is because it contained enough fabric to make the teether and leaves the remaining four panels intact for use as a bumper if we choose when we convert the crib to a toddler bed later.

Creating the Teething Rail Cover

I ripped carefully to leave as much of the fabric and piping as intact as possible. I might have been able to do less “deconstruction” of it had the original batting not been so thick. It wouldn’t form around the rail as I liked so I had to tear out a good bit of the seams to remove the batting.

After I removed the batting. I shifted some of the ties – leaving two on each end corner, and two offset 4 inches each side of the center of the cover. This way it would tie down just beyond the center rail. Then I added new batting and sewed it to both long sides as well as one end:

Next I flipped the cover right side out. Straightened it out. Sewed the open end closed. Then measured and marked lines for quilting:

I carefully sewed 5 individual straight lines spaced at approximately 9 inch intervals on the teether. This fully attached the fabric and batting.

Finally, I tied it onto the crib rail (taking care to position it so the animals face inward) and let my son check it out. I think I have his approval. Moments later he even “tasted” it.

And I finished this project just in the nick of time as his first tooth began poking through on Friday night.

Post linked to: Get Your Craft on Tuesday at Today’s Creative Blog and We Did It! Wednesday at Sew Much Ado.