Finding the Trigger

Any parent of an allergic child or a child with eczema will agree that life is always an adventure. You never know what the next trigger is and where it will come from.  You've done the skin tests, you've done the blood work, but even it all of those tests they still don't capture every possibility. As an example, there are hundreds of varieties of mold, so even though your test may have come in negative for the common three, you still have plenty more potential triggers to discover.  The food tests are getting more finite, where you can do Component testing for a number of common food allergens. But when it comes to environmental exposures (i.e. where I'm defining the environment as the conditions that surround someone or something : the conditions and influences that affect the growth, health, progress, etc., of someone or something). Therefore, the environment is both inside your home and outside.

As you've learned, our previous adventure has been linked to our mattress selection. So now that we're back to peaceful sleep with our daughter resting on the all-natural organic Berkeley mattress that is cozily resting on an all-wooden bed, we introduce the wardrobe.... the STUVA system from IKEA. What we loved about it is how modular it is! It's basically a custom closet / toy storage / play area all in one and you can build it out to be 100 inches high to take advantage of the high ceilings of a charming pre-war apartment - all at an affordable price.

After bringing it home, we decided to only assemble one section of it to start.  As we began the assembly a sneaky thought passed - will our daughter be ok living with it in the same room?  From my online research that I've done, IKEA adheres quite high standards for their particle board / fiberboard furniture as they manufacture the same inventory for all of the markets they operate in, so it doesn't vary from market to market. This means that this wardrobe has passed higher EU standards for emissions from material / glues / coatings e.t.c. They are also amazingly transparent when it comes to product information on the materials used (quoting the product description verbatim):

Product description

Frame:
Board on frame: Honeycomb structure recycled paper filling, Particleboard, Fiberboard, Foil, ABS plastic, Foil
Side panel: Particleboard, Honeycomb structure recycled paper filling, Fiberboard, Foil, ABS plastic, Foil
Back panel: Fiberboard, Foil

Door/ drawer front:
Fiberboard, Acrylic paint

Drawer without front:
Main parts: Particleboard, Foil
Drawer bottom: Fiberboard, Acrylic paint

Shelf:
Particleboard, Honeycomb structure recycled paper filling, Foil, ABS plastic

Clothes rail:
Clothes rail: Steel, Pigmented epoxy/polyester powder coating
Support: Polypropylene

Wire basket:
Steel, Pigmented epoxy/polyester powder coating

The only question remaining is - will we be sleeping tonight?  Well, it turned out we didn't.... But at least we know the drill by now - i.e. remove the item in question.  Our daughter's room returned back to it's original "steady state". A wooden bed with the Berkeley mattress. A wooden toy organizer (by the way it is from IKEA - but it's all solid wood), a wooden doll crib, a wooden chair, and a wooden book stand with books. Back to the minimalist state to see if sleep can now resume again and windows open for a couple of hours to air-out any remnant odors, bed sheets changed just in case moving the wardrobe resulted in any fiber dust on her sheets, and floors and surfaces wiped with a damp cloth.  Sure enough - sound sleep returned the following night.

We're back to the drawing board on the solution for the wardrobe.  We know we need to stick to solid wood at this point, we know we need to pay close attention to the stains that were applied to that wood and the recency of application.... Let the search begin!