DD is 21 months old and into EVERYTHING. For those of you having been through the holidays with toddlers, how did they do around the tree? I am fearing the worst and guessing I should put the nicer ornaments up top and the un-breakables down below.
What we did was put the nicer ornaments in the back and just moved the love seat up against the tree. Obviously that worked last year, haha. Not sure what will happen this year.
We have one of those Baby corral's. (We call it Baby Jail.) Evie won't use it anymore, so I think we'll probably put that around the tree. The only issue is that opening and closing it is a bit of a PITA. We always just stepped over it, but that won't work with the tree. I think we'll have to do a trial run to see how it goes.
We just didn't put up anything that we cared about breaking last year. FWIW, the Ikea christmas balls are plastic, so they don't break as easily if dropped.
DD was about 21 months last Christmas and she did pretty good about not taking everything off last year but there were some decorations that she gravitated towards.
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Our cats are hellions with the tree, they literally climb it, 2 weeks in and our tree looks like crap anyway. We just put our non-breakable ornaments on because of the cats anyway, but J spent a good 15 minutes at the mall the other day just looking at the tree in wonder, but didn't really try to grab anything.
I don't have any experience with toddlers, but my parents always put unbreakable ornaments on the bottom and breakable ones on top when my sister and I were young. I do the same thing with our tree now because of our cats and will continue to do so when DS is a toddler next year. The cats usually just bat at a few ornaments and that's the end of it. The cat I used to have literally took a running leap and tackled the 4ft tree I had at my apartment. But if you have a full-sized tree, it seems unlikely that Avery would try to tackle it
BFP#1: 01/10, M/C 6w BFP#2: 06/10, M/C 5w BFP#3: 09/10, DS born June 1, 2011
Don't have a toddler quite yet but B is crawling and getting into everything. I think we're going to get a short, small tree this year and put it on top of a table that way it'd up high and out of her reach. I am pretty sure putting presents out before Christmas Day won't be happening either.
We pretty much put all the nonbreakable stuff at the bottom. Anything that she could play with - little stuffed mittens, felt gingerbread men, etc. were all fair play. We put some presents out before Christmas, but not too many. It was just too enticing for her.
We just didn't put up anything that we cared about breaking last year. FWIW, the Ikea christmas balls are plastic, so they don't break as easily if dropped.
DD was about 21 months last Christmas and she did pretty good about not taking everything off last year but there were some decorations that she gravitated towards.
This was us. We put up a lot of "ornaments" (cloth ones, cow bell, weird things that we didn't normally use) that ds could take off and touch and only one or two nice ones at the very top.
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ditto JNealet on the Ikea ornaments- there are a lot of decent looking plastic ornaments, that look like the shiny or glitterly glass balls- you really can't tell they aren't glass unless you touch or drop them. We bought a ton of these for DD's first Christmas and I ended up using them in centerpieces, etc. and no one can tell that they aren't glass.
Don't have a toddler quite yet but B is crawling and getting into everything. I think we're going to get a short, small tree this year and put it on top of a table that way it'd up high and out of her reach. I am pretty sure putting presents out before Christmas Day won't be happening either.
Apparently this is what my parents did my first christmas (tree on a table). I was 10 months old and just learning to pull up on things.
Last year we put the tree in the corner the sofa was on one side & the love seat on another. it left a small gap in the front. He pretty much left it alone but this year we might need to put a gate or something up to keep him from getting into it. I also changed all the ornaments from having hooks to having ribbons which seemed to help hold everything on the tree better.
Re: Toddlers & Christmas Trees
We just didn't put up anything that we cared about breaking last year. FWIW, the Ikea christmas balls are plastic, so they don't break as easily if dropped.
DD was about 21 months last Christmas and she did pretty good about not taking everything off last year but there were some decorations that she gravitated towards.
BFP#1: 01/10, M/C 6w
BFP#2: 06/10, M/C 5w
BFP#3: 09/10, DS born June 1, 2011
BFP#4: 07/12, M/C 5w3d
BFP#5: 12/12, EDD 08/18/13
My Blog: Decorate This
Someone's getting a little brother!
miscarriage on 11/26/09 at 5w6d
This was us. We put up a lot of "ornaments" (cloth ones, cow bell, weird things that we didn't normally use) that ds could take off and touch and only one or two nice ones at the very top.
ditto JNealet on the Ikea ornaments- there are a lot of decent looking plastic ornaments, that look like the shiny or glitterly glass balls- you really can't tell they aren't glass unless you touch or drop them. We bought a ton of these for DD's first Christmas and I ended up using them in centerpieces, etc. and no one can tell that they aren't glass.
We put all of the breakable ornaments up higher.
Apparently this is what my parents did my first christmas (tree on a table). I was 10 months old and just learning to pull up on things.
Baby Girl #2 is on her way!