Product Spotlight: Babyproofing

cato99

Hello! Today concludes our three-part Older Baby Series and since our board is winding down, this will also serve as a final installment of our Product Spotlight Series as a whole. A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed and offered recs and experience and questions! The Google Sheet with links to all past Product Spotlight discussions will remain available for easy access whenever we are researching anything!

As part of our Older Baby Series we have covered seasonal needs as our babies grow, and products that will help with teething and feeding once they're old enough. Today I'd like to discuss another holy grail of baby things: babyproofing! We don't really need to worry about this until baby starts to crawl, but that will be a chaotic time so it's not a bad idea to have a sense of what to expect before we reach that stage!

How do you keep your babies safe as they start cruising around the house? Do you have babygates? Which ones? Did you build an enclosed playspace with freestanding gates or block off areas of the house? How do you prevent older babies from opening doors? Did you use plug covers or nah? Do you secure furniture to the walls and if so how did you accomplish that? How about preventing little fingers from getting into cabinets and drawers? If you have a fireplace, what to do with that area? Thoughts on any other dangerous household areas, like backyard pools? Please share!

Prior Product Spotlights

cato99

First world confession: I hired a babyproofing consulting company to come and do the whole shebang. I have an ancient complicated house with a lot of babyproofing needs, and my husband and I wasted a whole day trying and failing to install one (1) babygate and one (1) cabinet lock and decided we needed professional help, ha. So if you're feeling a little overwhelmed you can try checking if there are any babyproofing services available to you! 

The best thing about this company is that they had wholesale access to these amazing gates, BabyDan gates. So they installed those gates everywhere, and cabinet locks, and drawer pulls, and secured every single relevant piece of furniture to the wall (also an advantage because we live in earthquake country and had been meaning to do that anyway!). For cabinet locks, we have the old fashioned mechanical ones because our cabinetry is too ancient to support the shape of magnetic locks. I've heard good things about magnetic locks but keeping track of the "key" gives me a little panic, so I prefer the simple plastic "push down with your finger" version anyway.

I have a few dangerous windows that swing out so I had the company install chains in the openings so that the windows can't swing open very far. I also had them install additional locks on doors that lead to dangerous places (e.g., the deck) way up beyond a kid's reach. 

Other than that, I put doorknob covers on all doors (these don't have to be fancy, I just got some cheapie ones from Amazon), and most importantly I set up a big playspace for baby to wander around in. I had these baby gates set up in a big octagon around this set of baby flooring. It was big and intrusive but a huge help for about a year (6ish-18ish months). I liked that it was big enough that an adult could climb into the playspace with baby but not have to be obsessively watchful (e.g., I was able to answer emails and such while she played with her toys since everything in the confines of that space was super safe). 

Allycat11

I don't really babyproof unless absolutely necessary and even then I do the minimum. 

Of course anchoring heavy furniture is a smart idea. Other than that we wait until they start to explore to do anything. 
When baby starts crawling more than a couple feet, we put a gate at the top of the stairs. I like the step through kind that opens because I am short and it beats stepping over. I take down gates as soon as my kid is remotely comfortable on the stairs.
We have some outlet covers floating around but they are mostly useless. By the time my kids show an interest in outlets they are capable of removing the covers. Same goes for the cabinet/drawer locks. If I cared to do cabinet locks i would do magnetic ones but they haven't been necessary. Also I certainly would lose the key for the magnetic kind.

For babyproofing our bathrooms we just close the door during the early toddler phase. We do keep meds up on the highest shelf though. I literally can not comprehend the need for a toilet lock that some people use. 

Right around their second birthdays both of my kids learned to remove and/or open the baby proof doorknob covers. This is the only kind they have not been able to get past, granted half the adults that come to our house struggle with them too Safety 1st OutSmart Knob Covers, 4 Pack, White https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077MKKN89/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6.ucDbZZ5W2XV. We put those on our front door and garage door so they don't go in the front yard without our knowledge. 

I do nothing to babyproof sharp corners and hard surfaces.

jrm_14

@cato99 I had never thought about a professional baby proofing company! Mind blown. What a great business. 

BigBadWolf12

Similar to @Allycat11 over here.  We are one level and don't even own a baby gate.  The closest we've come to baby proofing is rearranging cupboards and drawers in kitchens and bathrooms to keep the worst stuff up high. 

We also put a (hot pink) yoga mat over some cables (classy, I know) and draped a black hand towel over the buttons on our black stereo system thing.  But I wouldn't call that baby "proofing" so much as just "out of sight out of mind" tactics. 

We have a really easy going son who was easily distracted away from what we didn't want him exploring at the time and he learned quickly what he was and was not allowed to get into (he basically has had free range of the house since he was mobile - we would just close the bathroom doors at first). If this one gives us a run for our money we will adjust,  but we aren't going to do anything ahead of time