How do you open a childproof zipper?

October 17, 2009 6:14 PM

How do you open a childproof zipper on an Ikea children's mattress cover?

We want to take off the cloth mattress cover on my son's Ikea mattress. It has a zipper on one end that appears to be childproof. See photos. But we'll be jiggered if we can figure out how to release it. I've tried pulling it with needle-nose pliers, I've tried twisting, prying, bending, pushing, bumping, jerking, snapping, wrenching, and doing the Mashed Potato. You can see the marks in the photo where my needle-nosed pliers have soiled it a bit. I've tried a paper clip. I've also googled this question to great frustration, with this story about a product from a different company sounding tantalizingly close but still insufficient to solving our problem.

Can you help? How do we release that zipper without simply destroying it?

posted by TurkeyMustard to grab bag (4 comments total)

Is the cloth stuck in the zipper? If so, have you tried pulling down (into the mattress) on the cloth while trying to push the zipper?
posted by spaghettification at 6:19 PM on October 17, 2009

The cloth is not stuck in the zipper. It's not broken as far as we can tell. The thing is, it's a childproof zipper. It's not a normal zipper.
posted by TurkeyMustard at 6:35 PM on October 17, 2009

Here are instructions for opening a "child safety lock zipper" on a beanbag...does that help?

http://hotbeanbags.com/info/child_lock.php

(sorry for the lack of linkage, apparently i'm linking impaired)
posted by SweetTeaAndABiscuit at 6:44 PM on October 17, 2009

That's it! I had been trying a *big* paperclip, not a small one.
posted by TurkeyMustard at 6:59 PM on October 17, 2009