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Babyproofing.... such a weird concept to me.
Protect your child by locking up EVERYTHING imaginable and moving it out of his reach. It doesn't seem so overwhelming when you're in the pre-crawling or even crawling stages. But once they walk, you realize "HOLY SHIT! There are hazards everywhere!". I mean seriously! To me, babyproofing is more like a managed protection spanning the range of  "watching the energizer bunny constantly" to "lock everything away". Our challenge was.... wait, who am I kidding? Our CHALLENGES (plural) were the following:- a large staircase
- a zillion cabinets
- another zillion drawers
- a large house.
- a super active baby
34 comments
We love those magnet keys, too! That said, our almost-3-year-old figured them out! We had our medicines and first aid items stored in a low cabinet and “protected” by a magnet key. Well, one day she wanted to help herself to some “my little pony” bandaids. So, she found the magnet key and helped herself! Keep the magnet keys up and away and put dangerous stuff high just in case! AND, she figured out how to pull off doornob covers, too. Whew…
The key will stick onto anything magnetic. So we keep it magnetized to the top of the refridgerator. We always know it’s there, and kids can never reach it.
Babyproofing can be a daunting task. I don’t even want to think about it with my little one quite yet! Glad you’re finding a way to get it done without getting overwhelmed!
~Puddin
Thanks for this post – I haven’t even thought of babyproofing.. guess it’s time to start thinking about that.
Thank you for posting about the furniture straps!! Our daughter is now in a toddler bed and I’m terrified of her roaming around and climbing on the furniture during the night (I also read that tragic story..), so we’ve been trying to find something to anchor it to the wall. These are perfect!
We have those magnetic cabinet locks too and we love them! Just have to keep the keys out of reach because my 11 month old has watched me do them so much he tried to open them with the key if I let him play with it!
I LOVE the magnet keys! We have them in our bathrooms and kitchen! So worth the extra money. The cheap ones worried me that she would still pinch her fingers and I have read about so many toddlers figuring out how to open them anyways.
2. GATES
Problem:
120 foot opening that needed to be gated.
Do you really mean feet? Or inches??
Yes inches. Sorry
Great list. Our house feels so bare (most heavy and/or breakable stuff is gone from our tables and bookshelves). Minimalism at its best.
Have you thought about door knob protectors?
I’m curious as to the products you specifically linked. Are those sponsored products, or do you get a percentage from it, say from Amazon?
We haven’t had an issue with doorknobs so far since the potential hazards like front, back and garage doors are usually locked.
As far as my affiliation with companies or Amazon, please refer to the terms of use and disclosure at the bottom of the page.
This post couldn’t have come at a better time! We were trying to figure out how to gate off our kitchen, which doesn’t have a doorway but has one wall at the edge of the fridge recess and a brick pillar about half a metre back, so making a wide diagonal opening. Had no idea how we were going to do it until i saw your gate at the bottom of your stairs. Perfect!
Now just to find if there’s anything like that in Australia 🙂
International shipping?
Amazon don’t tend to ship large or heavy items to Australia – i checked on this one, and it’s a no. But i did find one: http://www.fishpond.com.au/Baby/BabyDan-Silver-Configure-Stair-Gate-Safety-Gate/9999144788267. I’m sure there’s more on other sites too.
For people saying keep the magnet key out of reach of your baby, we have found the best place for it is on the side of our medicine cabinet and the side of the fridge. It’s a magnet, so it works great!
aw man baby proofing. We only baby proofed the things that were like super duper dangerous, i.e. drawers with knifes and scissors, but not all drawers, cabinets with chemicals but not all cabinets, latch on basement door but nothing else.
We paid someone to come in an baby proof. So worth it! It saved us so much time and energy.
I’ve heard of those services but it never entered my mind to do it. Now that I look back- that would have been perfect.
So how does it happen? How much does it cost? etc
This post personally caused me a huge headache in how much you have (and/or intend to) babyproof. Some good info, especially in regards to gates because that can be so difficult depending on the situation, but I think there’s A LOT of overkill. Then again, I don’t know the layout of your home. My entire baby proofing experience consisted of outlet covers, gating in the room/area for kiddo, removing anything sentimental/breakable from reach (more because I didn’t want to have to attempt replacing something meaningful than anything else), and closing doors. Limit access to the kitchen and there’s no need for babyproofing the cabinets — but for me that works because it’s literally a one/two-person-sized kitchen.
Really? Cuz literally this is the minimum we could have done to keep it safe.
But like you said size of the house matters. We have 4000 sq feet of hallways and nooks and danger.
Limit access to the kitchen? I had to lol at that. You should see the kitchen. There’s no way to limit the access. We live there half the day.
And to be honest, while I feel we barely did enough to baby proof, there’s no such thing as an overkill when t comes to safety. 1-3 years is. Dangerous age.
Overkill is impossible! With our first, we even had toilet locks! She was prone to tossing shoes and toys in there and trying to dive in! A contractor broke one trying to lift the lid lol!
I’m not looking forward to the toilet locking time. So far she’s been staying away.
Like I said, it all depends on your home/layout, and I don’t know it (hence that caveat when I commented). I have a galley-esque kitchen – no eat-in area, easily gated. My home is also under 2,000 sq ft, my laundry is in the garage, I have no stairs, and blind cords were easily hooked in/wrapped around the top-most blinds. Obviously, your and my mileage varies, but I just could not imagine living in a home where I needed to do everything you have.
If I limited access to the kitchen….which I do when I am cleaning the floor, she has a fit and just wants to be in there with me, hence why we did the locks on the cabinets. I do not think anything listed above is overkill at all. I see gates, which is mandatory with stairs, outlet covers, (we did not do this we just tell her no) but I know a lot of people do, and locks to cabinets you don’t want them in. I am not a parent that is going to follow my kid all over the house to make sure she is not getting into any cabnets she should not so that was a great thing for us to do. And as far as the blinds, I don’t see that as overkill either just taking the extra step of making your house safe as possible. I don’t see how keeping your child as safe as can be is overkill!
On the blind cords, you know that you don’t really have to wrap the cord around and around like that, right? Cause that takes forever. We put ours at the top of the window frame and just loop the blind cord around loosely a couple of times. As long as it is out of reach of the baby, it is safe. Not beautiful, but safe.
As to toilet locks, we just keep the bathroom door closed. If he is in there, we are with him.
We have a lock on the trash cabinet, but the others we just keep dangerous stuff out of. And when we are in the kitchen, we let him climb up on a kitchen stool so he can “help” us cook. It keeps him out of trouble!
Great post Elena!
While “baby-proofing only what you need to” is a great approach at first, when the kid starts crawling you need to shift to the “baby-proof all the things” tactic 🙂 The kid is getting faster every day and will reach areas you least expect.
Don’t forget strapping heavy furniture to the wall. TV’s and dressers should be secured. I know of a woman who’s 3 year old crawled up on a dresser and it fell over on her, her daughter didn’t make it. For less than $10 they could have secured that dresser to prevent tipping. It’s a regret she deals with on a daily basis.
I thought I wrote about it? No?
I read a horrible story that was similar.
You did write about strapping furniture to the walls. I just wanted to add something that you probably already know but didn’t directly address (in case there’s someone out there who doesn’t know) – it’s important to strap heavy dressers and shelves to the wall even if they are so heavy that it is difficult to move them because the baby can pull out the drawers to create a “ladder” and this makes it more likely to become heavy enough on the front to tip. Similarly, with a bookshelf, a toddler hanging off the end of it can cause the balance to shift enough to tip it. Also, beware of those gigantic television sets. They should be secured too if not already wall mounted.
We have a professional childproofing company and one of my favorite products is the outlet cover you have a picture of, because it locks itself back up and no more worries about forgetting to put those plastic outlet covers back in (not to mention they are a choking hazard) http://www.childsafellc.com
I just stumbled across your baby proofing post and wanted to put one more key baby proofing tip on your radar: storing all medicines and vitamins safely! More than 60,000 young kids a year end up in ERs after getting in to medicines that were left within reach. That’s 1 child every 8 minutes! This includes medicines placed on kitchen counters and bedside tables, those carried in purses and pockets and those that fell on floors or slipped into seat cushions.And almost 8 out of 10 times, that medicine belongs to a parent or grandparent. This is preventable with safe medicine storage: putting medicines up and away and out of sight, after each and every use (even those we have to take again in a few hours time).
http://www.UpandAway.org has some safe medicine storage tips and tip sheets. And Safe Kids Worldwide has some terrific infographics:
http://www.safekids.org/meds-info2013
Shelley, Another very good point! Locking up medicines & vitamins is a must! This is definitely part of our recommendations for all parents during our home walk through assessments.
Hi,
Thank for sharing this nice post. I have a question:- What is the diameter of the hexagonal play pen when using two units? In other words, what is the widest space it covers when set up as a play pen? Thank you…
Regards,
Kayla Robey
Keep your baby safe and prevent accidents at home with our childproofing checklist. Yours also rocks!