IKEA Bed Slat repair

It seems odd to me that IKEA would make the slats short enough to fall out. When you look at the bed, determine if the side rails are bowed out by measuring the distance between the rails at the head, the foot, and in the middle. If that's the case, it might be simpler to install a cable and a turnbuckle to pull the sides in and keep them in place.

I agree. I own such an IKEA bed and unless the frame is bowing out I can see that the slats reach the rails just fine.

…and if the frame is bowing out, it might mean that it was not constructed well. The bolts that hold the frame together may have loosened.

I've only been to IKEA twice, it's like a maze trying to get out of that place

I had a job that involved building and installing thirty slat beds for a camp. We had a furniture designer draw them up and the millwork was passed off to shop that the designer had used before. They came boxed – headboard, side rails, footboard and slats. They were made of prefinished 5/4 American Beech and were pre-drilled for all the hex head fastenings which were included. Once we put one together and designed a couple of jigs, the project went pretty well. They looked good. But after a month we got a few reports of falling slats. The camp was right next to the ocean and often in August the famous Penobscot Bay fog would hang around for days at a time. The humidity was enough to cause some of the side rails to bow out, even with the additional cleat for the slats. We ended up drawing the rail back with pipe clamps and screwing the six middle slats to the cleats. That did the trick. I haven't seen the IKEA beds but I was basing my recommendations on that experience. OP could use screws like we did but I sort of liked the idea of a single cable spanning the width of the bedframe.

Thanks for sharing. It’s always fun to hear about woodworking projects and people that know how to assemble and disassemble stuff.