There's A New Lawsuit Involving Weighted Sleep Sacks & Here's What Parents Need To Know

Parents of infants are probably caught up on the new hullabaloo surrounding weighted sleep sacks. In 2022, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) declared them unsafe in their safe sleep guidelines for the first time, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) followed suit. In April 2024, major retailers like Amazon, Target, and Babylist banned the sale of weighted sleep products for infants. Now, Dreamland Baby — an infant sleepwear brand perhaps known best for its weighted sleep sacks — is suing the CPSC for the agency’s alleged “illegal efforts” to ban the sale of its product.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) announced on May 9 that it plans to sue the CPSC over violations to Dreamland Baby’s “constitutional and statutory rights.” The NCLA alleges that CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka, in statements to the public and letters to retailers, has disparaged Dreamland Baby and insinuated the brand’s weighted sleep sacks have caused infant deaths, impacting the brand’s ability to continue operating. “These actions disregard the Consumer Product Safety Act’s required rulemaking processes, preference for voluntary standards, and show impermissible bias against Dreamland,” the NCLA said in a press release.

The CPSC has not enacted a federal ban on weighted sleep products nor issued recalls, though product safety advocacy groups say they are investigating those options, Romper previously reported. The agency has not publicly responded to the announcement yet, but a CPSC spokesperson tells Romper, “We have not seen any legal filing of that sort.”

This isn’t the first time CPSC has come under legal fire. Back in 2011, an anonymous company attempted to block the federal agency from launching its consumer complaints database — a website for customers to report safety risks and injuries resulting from products. The agency has a litigious history with companies its policies affects.

For parents, it’s important to note that this lawsuit is not a determination of whether or not weighted sleep sacks are safe or unsafe. Rather, Dreamland Baby is asserting that CPSC Commissioner Trumka should not have called weighted sleep sacks like theirs “unsafe” in statements to the public, or urged retailers to stop selling them, without a formal ruling. If you are concerned about the risks of using weighted sleep products on your baby, ask your pediatrician for their advice (but know they will probably cite the AAP’s safe sleep guidelines, which advise against the use of such products).