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D.C. Area Babies
Baby proofing is freaking me out!
DD isn't even remotely crawling yet - the most she does is scoot on her butt but that's just intermittent. For now, she's perfectly happy parked in her pack n' play or on the carpet with her toys. Bless. I know this will not last forever. DH and I were in Buy Buy Baby over the weekend and were in the baby proofing aisle and we almost had double aneurysms. There is so much c$%#! Tell me - what do we absolutely need and can we really just cordon off a room and call it good? I'm half-serious. We have a 2-level house with a finished basement. There's no door to the basement stairs off the kitchen so obviously we'll need gates for the two sets of stairways. Here are my other questions:
Do you need gates at the top and bottom of stairs?
Do you need toilet locks? We don't have a bathroom on the main floor just upstairs and in the basement where she won't go anyway.Will those door knob thingies suffice if we just keep the bathroom door closed?
Do I need cabinet locks on all lower kitchen cabinets? What about the stove?
Can I wait to see how adventurous she is or should this all be done before she's moving around?
Help me. I'm totally clueless about this.
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Re: Baby proofing is freaking me out!
Here's what we did (and as you know, we live in a house that's strikingly similar to yours
):
1. outlet covers on most outlets
2. cabinet locks on the lower kitchen cabinets
3. no stove lock / no toilet lock
4. Our basement has a door, so we didn't do a gate there, but we did do one at the top and bottom of the stairs. We just got tension gates (borrowed them from our next door neighbor, actually) for the stairs, but some people go for a more permenant option (those gates that screw into the wall with have a gate the opens and closes).
I think you can also see how curious she is about other things. I say we didn't do a toilet or stove lock, but that's because she never showed any interest in those things.
Gates are the main things you'll need. Other than that, I moved certain things around so they were out of reach (like chemicals and cleaners). I did outlet covers for certain plugs that were exposed. I tried to hide cords or wrap them up behind something so they wouldn't be a temptation.
Depending on your furniture situation, you may want to mount some furniture to the wall. Now that DD#1 is older, we did this in her room. We also did the doorknob covers in DD#1's room so she can't wake up in the night and start roaming around the house. Our new house has corded blinds on all of the windows so I wrapped the cords around large binder clips so they are up high where DD#1 can't reach.
Other than that, I think you just have to watch them to see if there are certain things that temp them which are unsafe.
This is all we did as well. We didn't even put gates up but we have a door to the basement. If we didn't have the door we would have had to put a gate up. DS learned the stairs really early b/c we let him go up and down with us rather than put gates up. The only other thing we did was put locks where the kitchen chemicals are. All other cabinets he can get into. He does make a huge mess with the tupperware but it entertains him for a bit.
For the other stuff I would wait and see how adventurous your LO is. We've found that DS is way more into stuff than our DDs were. He loves to get into the toilet so we have to keep the lid down and door shut.
We waited and are glad we did. We never let the kids in the bathrooms by themselves so no need for cabinet locks there. Also they have two cabinets they can go into in the kitchen so that was easy too - they never bothered the other cabinets. See where you will need the gates - obviously those stairs off the kitchen. We do not have top and bottom of stairs gates because when they were too small for the stairs or to know better we gated them off in the living room only.
It really all depends on how much you let me them run around by themselves and where. We did need outlet covers pretty much everywhere - the real deal kind they can't get into in places where they might be alone for a few minutes like their rooms or the living room and the plug in kind for other spaces just in case. We also either removed furniture that could fall on them or secured it to the wall - my kids are climbers and they would so try and climb dressers etc if they could.
For the bathrooms we just kept the doors closed and again supervision when they were not in the living room or their bedrooms worked fine for us.
We put outlet covers in and a gate at the top of our stairs when DD starting crawling. Then we waited to see what she would get into before investing a lot of time/money into stuff.
Ultimately, we put some cabinet locks on the important cabinets (medications, cleaning supplies, liquor) when it became apparent she was interested in opening them. When she started climbing upstairs, we got a gate for the bottom of the stairs, but not one that needs to be installed (we just thread it through the rails). We might have to put a drawer lock on our drawer with knives in it (or move the knives) because she's recently started opening that drawer to get her silverware.
We don't have stairs, so I can't help there.
But, regarding the other stuff: I think a lot of it is how adventurous/curious they are.
Like, you say you don't have a bathroom on the main floor. But does your DD ever come into the bathroom with you? J comes in with me to chat while I'm putting my makeup on or whatever, or even in the shower. Before we put a lock on the toilet he would stick his hands in there and splash them around. Often.
Cabinets in the kitchen--I would do locks on all of them at first. Definitely the one under the sink (or wherever you keep your cleaners etc.). We just put a rubber band around the knobs to the big pots/pans cabinet and he never really messed with it.
We never did anything with the stove but he's not usually in there much when we're cooking (or he's sitting on a chair watching). But I can see how the burner guard things would be helpful.
Oh yeah, we did outlet covers too. But no furniture locks, which is bad I realize.
And we did use a gate around our Christmas tree last year so he wouldn't pull off all the ornaments.
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
baby blog/cooking blog
I think what you need really depends on your DD and your parenting style. I would wait and see what happens when she first starts crawling around to gauge whether it's worth getting deep into the baby proofing gear. T isn't one to test physical boundaries, so we didn't do a whole lot of baby proofing and I don't regret it at all. I am also likely to either be playing with her or very close by on the weekends, so I'm generally able to redirect when she tries to test out something she shouldn't.
We had a gate for the top of the stairs, but not the bottom. Our stairs are far enough away from the living room that if DD ever got over to them, I'd know quickly enough to get over to her and watch her or redirect her.
We briefly had a lock on the kitchen cabinet with the cleaning supplies - one of the slip over the knobs types. T defeated it pretty quickly, but we gave her a drawer with Tupperware next to it and that entertained her until she got out of the phase of wanting to open the cabinets. She would rather close half-open drawers than open up everything and get into stuff she shouldn't.
And that's it. No electrical socket covers. No other door locks, toilet locks, protectors on the stove. She still barely tries to climb onto the couch, so we haven't tried to attach any furniture to the wall for fear that she will climb on it and have it tip on her. We haven't had to cover up the stereo or other electronics with buttons.
As for your kitty, is there a door to the place where his litter box is? We had a similar problem for different reasons - our dogs get into kitty litter and one of our cats is getting too arthritic to jump over gates. We built a kitty hole into the door so that we could close the door and he could still get in - something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Cat-Hole-Cat-Door-Hole-Pet/dp/B000AU64PK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320348752&sr=8-1
Good luck!
We have a similar issue. In our house the basement stair are off a hallway, so we blocked the hallway on one side (the living room side) with the gate. The opposite side is the kitchen and we left that open since DS doesn't play in the kitchen unless I am there. I sort of felt it was easier for the cat to jump from level to level rather than adding in the extra height of an additional stair.
This is a really helpful post - we're about to go the babyproofing route soon too. We have a cat we plan to install an extra small doggie door in the wall beside the door to the basement - I didn't want to leave the door open with a gate because I didn't want to make her jump over it and because that would let a lot of cold air up into the rest of the house. Our cat is small and the dimensions are big enough for her but not big enough for a baby.
Something like this pet door: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000793L14
With this for installing it in a wall instead of in a door (since we'd rather cut a hole in a wall than the door): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A3PZ2O
They also sell gates with pet doors built in but I'm not sure how they actually work and if the opening would be big enough for the baby to get through. You could also probably modify a wooden gate so one of the openings is big enough for the cat but not the baby.
ETA: Updated links to the cat door and wall kit above - I just bought them, I'll let you know how it goes.
We did minimal babyproofing, but I really feel like what we did was sufficient. We have a LOT of stairs in our house (4 different sets). The basement stairs have a door, so we just make sure that door is closed all the time. DH also installed a lock on that door, so we can lock it for extra safety in case one day M figures out how to open the door. We don?t have gates on any of the other stairs. We put a gate at the entrance to our living room, which is right near one of the flights of stairs, but it also works to ?contain? him in the living room. He learned how to crawl up and down stairs very quickly, and we always follow behind him when he's on one of the big flights of stairs.
As for other things, we put safety latches on two cabinets -- the one under the sink, and our pantry. For the other cabinets, we moved the dangerous items (like our mandoline, yikes!) so they?re out of reach. This means he has access to things like our Tupperware, baking pans, muffin tins, etc. He does open those cabinets and play with things, but nothing in there is dangerous, so we don?t worry about it. It keeps him entertained when he?s in the kitchen.
Other than that, the only thing we did was put outlet covers on our electrical outlets. M has recently become very interested in the toilet, but we just keep the bathroom doors closed. I have considered getting a lock for the toilet for when I bring him into the bathroom with me, because it?s one of the first things he goes for. But I wouldn?t buy something like that in advance. Wait to see what she becomes interested in.
We're just baby-proofing gradually as needed and going minimalist on baby-proofing gear. When LO started to crawl, we put up the baby gate to the basement and put the anti-tip thing on the stove since those are biggies. Our outlets were child-safe already. We don't have any dangerous chemicals on the main floor of the house and we don't mind if LO gets into the low drawers or cabinets (which means we've moved the little/sharp things up). We shifted furniture and accessories slightly to block power strips, plants, and tipping things. If he gets more into things, we may hev to do more. But, we'll deal with it as needed. Just go a room--or part of a room--at a time! We haven't done anything with our much more hazardous basement because we don't let LO play on the ground down there.
More Green For Less Green
H has been crawling for about 2 months now and we've done next to nothing. We put outlet covers in the outlets that she tends to be drawn to, and put away our coffee table (more because she kept banging her head on it when pulling herself up).
we have stairs, that lead from our main level to the basement (where our living room is. there is a door at the top so if i just shut that if she is crawling around up there. in the basement we just got one of those gated play yard things and stretched it across the room opening so she can't get to the stairs.
the rest of it, i figure we'll do when we see what she really gets in to. she's never out of our sight unless she's contained (crib, pnp) so it's not an issue.
we looked in to this option, and for the one i looked at online what i've read the pet door is latched - so you have to leave it open if you want the cat to have access without you being there to open/close it. and reviewers did say it is large enough for baby to crawl through.
We did this. The only other thing we did was put a gate going to the basement. Our other stairs are too wide and curved so we couldn't put a gate. We just made sure we watched her and we had no problems. We didn't do cabinet locks, toilet seat locks, or locks on anything else. We just made sure that any cleaning supplies were up high so she couldn't get to them.