S/O Christmas Trees...

ladipale · November 2011

What did/do you do when you have a crawling, exploring, awesome 11 month old in the house at christmas time? how do we keep the munchkin from eating the ornaments & tree? skip the tree this year?

fjaril · November 2011

just like when the dog was little, we left the bottom w/out ornaments only lights.

everydayeve · November 2011

We didn't skip the tree when Eve was Ellie's age. We just hung any breakable ornaments where she couldn't reach and redirected her when she would reach for the tree. We've never been big on lots of gates or restricted areas in our house though.

ladipale · November 2011

We aren't big on restricting either. just have one room (so the cat can escape to someplace safe and baby free) that is blocked off

lunabeam · November 2011

We opted to do a smaller tree, it was maybe 2.5 ft tall. We put it up on a table (one that is not easily tipped over, obviously!). That way we could lift DS up and he could touch the tree/ornaments, but he couldn't reach it on his own.

everydayeve · November 2011

ladipale:
We aren't big on restricting either. just have one room (so the cat can escape to someplace safe and baby free) that is blocked off

This also reminded me. We did put a gate up while the tree was up so that she couldn't be in the living room alone with the tree. Not that we would've left her in there by herself for too long anyway, but we didn't leave her alone with it at all. Need to find that gate for Theo now...

SarahCee · November 2011

DS was 11 months last x-mas. I bought several soft & non-breakable ornaments for his reach of the tree. For the most part he left the tree alone. this year will probably be a different story :-)

EmmieB · November 2011

everydayeve:
We didn't skip the tree when Eve was Ellie's age. We just hung any breakable ornaments where she couldn't reach and redirected her when she would reach for the tree. We've never been big on lots of gates or restricted areas in our house though.

this.

f&s2006 · November 2011

I was really concerned about this last winter and for some reason P was fascinated that there was a tree inside at first, then kind of ignored the tree. I think it will actually be much harder this year now that he's way more interactive in general. But anyhow, I just didn't put any breakable ornaments on the bottom, only our fabric ones, and had the lights wrapped pretty close to the center of the tree (more out of reach) since I couldn't NOT have a tree for P's first christmas. :P

kittylove · November 2011

lunabeam:
We opted to do a smaller tree, it was maybe 2.5 ft tall. We put it up on a table (one that is not easily tipped over, obviously!). That way we could lift DS up and he could touch the tree/ornaments, but he couldn't reach it on his own.

Us too.

dblhappiness · November 2011

When the boys were that age, we put the tree in an area that was gated off (our entryway). They could gaze at it from behind the gate and we only lost maybe a handful of ornaments that year. The next year when they still were all about touching and practically climbing the tree, I only put on the shatterproof or soft ornaments on.

GirlStylist · November 2011

We just kept the ornaments up higher. The excitement of the tree wore off after awhile. Wasn't a huge deal in our house with both boys , and both were around 9 months old !

tri_bride05 · November 2011

When our first was 11/12 months old, we put the tree in our entry room, which was downstairs and he did not have access. When he was 2 we put the tree up w/non-breakable ornaments close to the bottom and redirected. A lot. Last year (with 3 year old and 10 mos old and in a home with a very open floor plan where no common rooms can be shut off), we went the super yard route and just gated the entire tree. We will probably do the same this year.