Christmas trees and toddlers?!?

[MoonandMeMe]

Just looking ahead to Christmas. Our DS will be 18months in Dec. Does one have a Christmas tree with a toddler in the house? I'm struggling to work out if it's possible but will be sorry not to have one!

It's only just occurred to me as a clueless first time mum! What do others do?

I never get these post, sorry, not in a rude way but I’ve had 4 kids and none have ever pulled it over?

My toddler never pulled the tree over. We just told him no and disciplined him if he was messing with the tree.

Mine pulled it over! Last 2yrs I got an artificial M&S table top one instead . This year they are 4 and I'm reverting to buying a big real one again.

The worst my 18 month old did was take the baubles off and not put them back in the same place.
I think my mums cats used to cause more chaos than my toddler.

Had to have one for the cute pics next to the Xmas tree 😂

Following out of interest. DD will be 15 months. I think we might just give it a miss for the one year - at the moment our living room is sufficiently baby proofed that we can leave her in there for a small amount of time while on the loo or whatever, with a Christmas tree it wouldn't be. And I really don't want to lose that tiny bit of freedom to move around the flat. I figure it's only for one year as by next year she'll hopefully be old enough to understand not to pull on it etc. But we're a very Christmassy household so ideas welcome!

I've 3dc and never once did I not put up a tree or even have to think about if my toddlers would pull it down. Absolute madness.

At 18 months you should be fine, maybe no accessible glass baubles and zero touching policy. I have a 10 month old so I'll be keeping the bottom foot ornament free

The only thing I did was to make sure all baubles were plastic.

I do have a real tree though. They are heavier and more difficult to pull over.

Didn’t pull it over, but messed with a baubles a bit

I have three children, 8, 6 and 2. We have had a Christmas tree every year, and it has never been pulled over.

Never had any problems having ours up. She likes to look at and touch the baubles but was never in any danger of pulling it over. A couple of presents under the tree did have little toddler-sized finger holes in the wrapping though!

My then 2 year old didn't touch it. She wasn't even that interested other than when the lights were turned on.

We have a folding child proof rail that we got cheap , which we fenced off the corner that the tree was in. Our son at one year old / two years old was just a hooligan though.

How about a picket fence? 😉

We have a real tree. I put it in a heavy iron stand, fixed by cable ties to a big 2x3 foot piece of MDF to make a large base.

I actually got this setup after our cat knocked the tree over and smashed loads of my favourite decorations. But it is toddler proof too.

I should add with DC1 we were never worried about the tree but DC2 crawled under it, pulled himself on it, chewed the decorations, hid in it.... You know which type of kid you have, childproof accordingly!

Anything delicate goes near the top in our house. We had a very odd looking tree last year. The tree has never toppled but both of mine have liked taking decorations off so much easier to just let them crack on with ones that can’t be broken.

Never needed to do anything other than put non breakable ornaments on lower half of tree. I also made sure the heirloom ornaments stayed in the box for a year or so.

my advice is not to involve DC in decorating the tree. Once you give a toddler leave to touch the ornaments they will be doing it all the time. They can help when older

We didn't bother last year and won't again this year ds will be nearly 2 and he'll definitely pull it over

It never occurred to me he might pull the whole thing over!!! I was more thinking of the baubles, which I know he'll be DESPERATE to touch. Most of our last are glass. He's a very very energetic curious child and has to touch absolutely everything.

Oh fair enough I know loads don’t do it because of that reason, the baubles I wouldn’t worry about as I would just get plastic as he will definitely pull them off 😬

Bearing in mind that baubles can also get knocked off by energetic children running around, you might want to invest in some non-glass ones for lower down - that's what we had when I was a kid and my parents still do (dogs!) But yeah, mines a climber and gets in everywhere so I would worry she'd pull up on it or something, but maybe a heavier base is the answer.

Dc1 never touched it apart from a fixation on one specific ornament that he pulled off and proceeded to twist around his finger almost cutting circulation off 🙄 i only just managed to get it untwisted without surgical intervention! I'm sure we were just unlucky!
Dc2 last year at 1 was obsessed with afew baubles so they got higher up the tree (problem solved) but then began pulling at lower branches and trying to climb the tree 🤭 hence we put a little fence around! No amount of no's/discipline as aome posters suggest really work on a just turned 1 year old! Hoping this year a simple no will suffice as he is abit more communicative!

It really depends on the child op and only you know yours. Maybe just try and proceed with caution, any ominous situations occur address them then.

Four children and have never not had a tree up.

My DS was 2 last Christmas and he pulled the tree over several times.