speaking of safety...

eacerna · July 2011

what kind of baby/childproofing have you done in your house? E is not mobile yet (she's not interested in crawling. we think she'll either fly first (she always flaps her arms lol) or walk before she starts crawling lol!) but I know she'll just surprise us one of these days. we have not done anything inside the house. we got a glass coffee table that we got to get rid of....standing lamp in the living room...stairscase...banister along the hallway..some kind of glass stand with breakables, etc. All of those we need to get rid of or at least put somewhere where she can't reach. can you please share what you have done in your house? i know i'll pick up great ideas from all of you :-). thanks!

lelekay · July 2011

Other than the gates we put up, we covered the outlets in any area he plays in (most of the house), put cabinet locks on most of the kitchen (we left things with only pots and pans, since he likes to pull them out and play with them, and I'm okay with that), and we tried to put squishy corner covers on the coffee table, but he pulled them off after only a week, so we left them off. We moved a few vases and things in the living room, and bolted MH's decorative telescope to the floor (he loves that thing, but H was pulling it down, so it was either get rid of it or bolt it down - he chose bolt it down). Other than maybe adding a gate upstairs someday or perhaps covering the edge of the fireplace (he doesn't really play down there except when in his gated play area so far), I think that's about all we'll do.

sanae78 · July 2011

We still haven't done much except cover outlets. We just follow her around CONSTANTLY or keep her in her pack n play or play yard when we need to put her down somewhere safe. We are definitely behind on the babyproofing! We taught her to crawl down the stairs but I do kinda want to put a gate at the top because I'm worried she may trip near the top and tumble down. Sometimes we just put the pnp there because it's the perfect width to block off the stairs.

MrsNJSwimmer · July 2011

we moved breakable stuff to higher ground, and we keep moving it.

standing lamps went into storage unless we could tuck it behind a corner chair or something.

outlet covers - we had these but waited to put them on until he discovered the outlets - first sign of that and we put them on.

gates went up down stairs in the play room once he could crawl, and on the stairs at the top shortly thereafter - we were always with him upstairs and could close the door to whatever room we were in, so it wasn't as big a deal at first.

cabinet locks were installed in the bathrooms and kitchen once he figured out how to open those cabinets.

since he now knows how to close regular doors, but can't open them, and he will probably soon figure out how to lock them, so we need to buy new door knobs now - didn't think of that one!

lola808 · July 2011

Ours sounds like what other people have done. Like Christine said, though, our best babyproofing is just following him everywhere.

Our first step was to buy an 8-panel Super Play Yard. He HATED being enclosed, though, so eventually we just opened it up and laid it against the TV and shelving area where a lot of things could be grabbed. It doesn't look good, but it does a great job of creating a safe space for him to play.

We also plugged the outlets, padded the corners of the coffee table, and put up cabinet locks. Those chain links are also good for placing across longer distances when you need to keep cabinet doors shut.

We have one baby gate, but usually I have all the doors closed except the main room and his room, where I feel OK if he's out of my sight for a few seconds. I'm also perpetually reminding everyone to keep doors to the outside locked, because he reaches up and you never know when they'll be able to get outside on their own.

I have some tethers to secure furniture to the wall, which is our next step. I know eventually he'll be out of my sight for longer, and I know there's a good chance he'll try to scale something.

mrs.winter · July 2011

We did the same as Christine. Our place is not that big so we just followed him around. Like E, Ashton showed no interest in tummy time nor crawling and we never thought he would crawl, but he eventually did crawl about 1 month before he started walking.

parrotgirl · July 2011

we are pretty much in line with others here. besides moving the coffee table against a wall and a few outlet covers there is not much else we've done. i do need to get something for the lower cabinets but we are usually right there with him. about the stairs, we taught m to climb down so we are not worried at all about that, he goes up and down 100x a day and usually is supervised by an adult.

cecig · July 2011

Don't forget to hide the cords to the blinds if you have any in your home. I know they sell something to roll them up, but we just tucked them into the blinds at the very top of the window.

An oven lock is also a good idea.

We also used cabinet locks for cabinets filled with cleaning products, etc. And if you can, get some YUK stickers (do any of you remember getting those in school?) from your nearest poison control center. We put them on everything and Cassie knows not to touch anything with a YUK sticker.

We bought corner cushions for the coffee table but ended up just moving the table out of the way because they kept falling off.

HTH!

myday1708 · July 2011

We babyproofed in stages... There are some companies in the DC area that will come to your house and recommend what you need, then sell/install the stuff as well... In case that sounds like something you'd want to do.

-- Baby gate at top of stairs (left by former owners). 2 additional baby gates to keep her out of hallway, bottom of stairs, stairs to basement, kitchen, etc. This essentially gives her the run of the family room, dining room and sunroom, which is plenty of space to play and is a completely babyproofed area.

-- Cabinet locks in kitchen. Locks on toilets. Magnet lock for under the sink cabinet. Cabinet lock on china hutch.

-- Outlet covers, or better yet, we have the outlets where you have to slide them over to use. (former owners did this)

-- All hanging window blind cords have been cut and fixed up (former owners did this)

-- Replaced door stoppers with rubber heads (chockable) with all plastic ones.

-- HAD corners on some edges but she kept taking them off so they are no more.

That's all I can think of! HTH!

redshoegirl · July 2011

We put up baby gates, power outlet covers (and thank god because my kids are OBSESSED with them!), and latched a few cupboards shut. That was pretty much it! Oh, and we have what Ben and I call the "high water mark" - the level the boys can reach things lol. There's nothing below that line that's not indestructible. Stick out tongue

inamra · July 2011

We're going to be babyproofing more, but for now, we have wire covers, outlet covers, baby gates (for both play area & stairs), corner cushions on our coffee table. I already bought some furniture straps, a door monkey, and blind cord winder but we're not actively using them yet because we don't leave him unattended in rooms and we sort of follow him around a lot like sanae does with K. We're also going to be buying cabinet/closet locks and a toilet lock this week. That's all we have on our list for now =P

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