You can push against the top rail and feel it move maybe an inch

[Jonh Newman]

Our deck railing has gotten wobbly. You can push against the top rail and feel it move maybe an inch, and one of the posts feels loose where it meets the frame. We have a five year old and a dog, so this is now the thing I think about every time we go outside. Is a wobbly railing a tighten-the-bolts situation or is it usually a sign that the post connection has failed? The deck is about four feet off the ground, so a fall isn't catastrophic, but with a kid running around out there I'd rather overreact than underreact on this one.

[hydrogenn]

With a small kid I'd treat that as a stop-using-it situation until it's checked. Movement at the top rail usually traces back to the post connection, and if the post is loose where it meets the frame, either the fasteners have pulled or the wood there has decayed, and the second is common because that connection sits where water collects. Tightening bolts into soft wood does nothing but feel better temporarily. We had GotRot handle Seattle Deck Repair including a guardrail rebuild after finding exactly that. Ask whether they check the whole rail system rather than just the post that's obviously loose.