To wonder if people were telling me the truth when they said, 'Oh, we haven't baby-proofed, we've just trained them'

[MainlyMaynie]

Several people have said this to me. They claim they haven't bothered baby-proofing and have just left their houses the same way. Apparently they have just taught their children not to touch. Their houses look the same, full of giant glass vases etc. But can this possibly true? I am spending all day moving DS away from objects, saying 'not for DS' and giving him a toy. All I have taught him is that there is a very funny game of going for a forbidden object, giggling and waiting for Mummy to catch up. If he thinks I'm not catching him, he actually pauses, turns round to look at me while laughing and then races off again when he thinks I'm chasing fast enough. I am tempted to turn my house into an undecorated category a prison cell.

We haven't bothered with babyproofing, mainly due to procrastination if I'm honest. Dd has turned out to be train-able, on the whole. When she started rummaging through kitchen cupboards, we did the trick of giving her her 'own' drawer - the one with all the plastIc stuff in, and that worked to divert her from the others. I personally loathe stairgates as I always fall over them at other people's houses so was determined not to have any here. But now I'm seven months pg and not very fast at following dd, and yesterday she chased the cat up the stairs like a rocket before I could stop her or at least slow her down. So I went out this morning and bought stairgates. Damn.

I can believe girls might be trainable but inquistive boys less so. I baby proofed when ds was born but to no avail, he learned how to climb over stair gates and onto counters using building blocks....

I think it depends on the child tbc. My friend has had to move everything out of her dds way. My dniece was the same as smeared candle wick all over the cream carpet. Depends how much ornaments etc you have too. I have no clutter so half way to baby proof.

Didn't babyproof for DS1, he was a dream toddler tbh. Ds2 is definitely more of a cupboard-emptying, shoe-licking stair-abseiler though, so a bit more effort's been made this time.

I think they have just been lucky.
with dc1 we needed to baby proof everything but dc2 is just not interested in destroying everything and getting herself into too much danger

YABU. It's the total truth. Sorry.

We have glass vases etc all over, cds on racks, and the dcs know that our stuff is simply not for playing with. Hasn't been all that hard, tbh, but all families/children are different.

I am neither suffering from amnesia nor talking bollocks or, indeed, viewing parenthood through rose tinted spectacles....

Didn't change a thing with any of mine (oldest 18, youngest 3). Given that my oldest could scale her cot at 10 months before she could walk I figured that stair gates would be a waste of money. IIRC each one of them fell down the stairs once, and never again.

Depends entirely on the child. ds1 lead us into a totally false sense of security. He didn't, on the whole, touch things he shouldn't have, he didn't eat things that he wasn't fed at a high chair or on a plate and he was remarkably uninterested in throwing himself down the stairs. So while we covered plugs and were sensible about unguarded fires, we didn't childproof the house.

So when ds2 came along it was some surprise to discover he was determined to go out in a blaze of glory. He ate out of the coal bucket - in fact, at a BBQ he discovered a coal shed at a friend's house that even we hadn't known was there and emerged filthy, nibbling on a nugget of smokeless fuel. He was discovered, aged 15 months, crawling up his grandparent's stairs carrying a bottle of some vile liqueur he'd found in their drinks cupboard and if you turned your back on him, you could be certain he was headed inexorably for anything unsuitable.

Both children were reminded about what was, or was not, suitable to touch. ds1 barely needed telling. ds2 would smile sweetly, agree and wait till your back was turned before returning to whatever annihilation he was engaged upon.

Didn't do much, but then we have a child who isn't that interested in our stuff, and most of our stuff isn't breakable.
We did do stairgates because she loved to climb and even falling downstairs wasn't enough to teach her either not to do it or to do it safely. We took the stairgates off when she was just over two and more competent, so we have them for a year. And we went to other houses and managed.
We also have cleaning things out of reach - a child we knew died a couple of years ago after drinking bleach so we have been s* hot on that sort of thing. And a few other basic safety things that others mentioned like the knives and hot pans out of reach.
But we didn't lock up the valuables because we don't have any - the vast majority of our ornaments seem to be wood!

I think some things -fireguards for example are non negotiable

Weeell, I haven't done much (mainly a couple of stairgates and not putting breakables within easy reach of children) but I think I have been lucky to have a relatively careful and obedient child. EG: DD didn't bother trying to get into the kitchen once she'd been told not to go in there a couple of times, whereas another child visiting recently just kept trying over and over and over again.

I have found that allowing DD to have very minor accidents is a better teacher of why she shouldn't do something than just telling her not to. Since she fell off the decking onto the lawn (all of 8 inches!) she's really, really careful with steps, and the day she nearly fell down the stairs was the very last time she messed about with the stairgate!

My parents went for partial babyproofing. Everything very precious was put out of the the way for the duration. Very dangerous situations/items were baby-proofed or removed. Everything else was left as usual on the grounds that we (the children) had to learn not to touch.

It worked for us as children and it has also worked for my children visiting their house. I've tried myself (perhaps erring slightly more on the side of caution) and the children have never broken on damaged anything or injured themselves and are now 3 and 8 yo.

I didn't have cupboard locks, did have one cupboard they could empty and used to put dangerous things well back or high up (well back because I would notice they were in a cupboard they shouldn't be, but they also had child proof caps etc.). Only had stair gates in 1st house, as didn't get around to attaching them in the next two, before kids could negotiate stairs (1 day of trying). I did move things out of reach or put up with breakages.

PIL said when we visited they had baby proofed, DS then picked up a paper knife!

Hmm, so perhaps I haven't been lied to. Probably too early to know whether it's DS's personality or whether he'll get it eventually (he's 9 months). I have bought socket covers (not in UK), but our sockets aren't in reach for him yet. Dangling wires are though and he bloody loves them.

As others have said depends on the child.

DD1 pathologically fiddles with everything, it's totally subconscious and automatic. No is pointless, she's picked something up before she realises she's done it.

Unfortunately the only thing she had no interest in was toys.

Everything had to be moved and she had to be followed everywhere when visiting, even at houses with other toddlers. She'd find something to pick up their child didn't.

DD2 plays with toys and doesn't pick up every item in the shop and wouldn't dream of investigating a strangers book case.
Its very very odd.

I also did the plastics drawer in the kitchen - it works really well.

I put the cleaning products 6ft high when I was 6 months pregnant - a little bit early thinking about it now.

It depends on your house and on the age that your child becomes active.

In a house with a late crawling, late walking baby and very little that was accessible from her height anyway we really didn't do much.

If she'd been a climber or had lots of tempting breakable stuff at her level it would have been a totally different story!

Depends totally on the child. Mine climb but have taken very little interest in cleaning products. On the off-chance, I did put the ones they could get into up high.

I certainly don't have amnesia - I am right in the thick of it with a 3 year old DS and a 20-month old DD, so no need to 'remember'; I am living it!

When we lived in a 3-story house, we had stair gates but that was that. Absolutely no other changes. Certainly no plug socket thingees.

We live in a bungalow now, and have done no baby-proofing whatsoever.

I went round to someone's house a couple of weeks ago - her DC are respectively just a few months older than mine. The house was like a fortress with practically each room stair-gated off. It made me feel dreadfully remiss, as if I was letting our children run wild around the house. Until I realised that I far preferred the way our house looked, and the children weren't running wild throughout the house. Well, running and playing but not destroying!

Ornaments are kept out of reach, and the kitchen cupboards are shut, no kiddy-locks. Any time DD tries to get into them, I stop her. One cupboard with cleaning equipment is internally locked.

I didn't really think our approach was odd until I saw her house. And maybe read this thread!

I think it depends on the child. Ds1 was a veritable nightmare and we couldn't even go round to anyone else's house for fear of massive destruction. One friend (who had 3 dcs) didn't quite believe me until she insisted we paid a visit. It wasn't until ds got lodged behind the Xmas tree and managed to smash her child proof baubles did she understand.

We never child proofed, ie no fire guard, no socket covers, no stair gates, didn't move furniture etc.

We were careful and repetitive with our children and even DD (3) knows she doesn't touch the fire and can negotiate stairs properly. In fact when we viewed a nursery recently they had a lot of stairs and said the majority struggled with stairs due to not having been taught properly due to stair gates, but that was the nurseries assessment not mine.

We made a few token efforts at babyproofing, but as it turned out, dd was very teachable. If I told her no, that was it - she would remember that something was off limits and didn't try to test those limits. She is still very obedient now. I don't think this has anything to do with us - just luck/her personality.

She is also naturally a bit of a scaredy-cat very cautious, and started risk assessing from a very early age.

Certainly some kids are more compliant than others. For some children "No" means "No", whereas for others (eg my DD), "No" means "This is really exciting and I must go and investigate at every opportunity.

Am a bit surprised at people who think it's OK not to put stairgates up because once the child has fallen down the stairs, they'll learn not to do it again. What if they break their neck?