to be frustrated with in-laws attitude to childproofing?

[PurpleGentian]

Staying at the in-laws with 14 month old DS. Their house is not childproofed, which is understandable, given that they don't have small children around that often. But their lack of understanding about DH & I wanting to temporarily childproof things is getting a bit stressful. It's getting to the point where I don't feel I can take my eyes off DS for a moment unless he's in his cot or highchair.

We've had issues over fireguards, things (ornaments, matches, nail scissors, tiny things that can choke a child) on low tables, dangly tablecloths, looped cords on their blinds, among others. The general impression they give is that they think we're worrying about nothing.

Today, DS got into a backgammon set. I'd not moved this, as it was stored on the floor in what looked like an old briefcase, and I perhaps foolishly thought that it was just an empty old briefcase (in-laws don't throw much away). I noticed just in time to stop him from putting one of the dice into his mouth. When I mentioned this to MIL, her reaction was that it would have caused an awful mess if DS had scattered the pieces all over the floor. My concerns about him choking on the dice were completely dismissed.

I know it's unreasonable to expect them to completely childproof their home for us, but AIBU to expect them to not dismiss our childproofing concerns out of hand? (I possibly am BU, as I'm still a bit shook up by the dice incident)

Not sure if that's aimed at me or not Ruby, but if it is, then my tactic for DD worked just as well at mine, my ILs and my parents. Like I said, we all do things in different ways with differing degrees of success. It worked for me, it obviously didn't work for you, so what? Neither of us is wrong. I'm not sure why you seem to be worked up?

We never baby proofed other than stairgates as we always felt that baby had to learn not too touch, however, as time went by we ended up with a kind of tidemark where things had been moved higher out of the reach oflittle fingers

MiL has a house full of tiny crystal ornaments which were magnets for my 2 when they were little and she always refused to move them out of their reach. Entire visits were spent saying no, chasing them away and removing crystal dogs from toddlers' mouths. It was so stressful and you never got a minute to go to the loo or drink a cup of tea so we just stopped going.

I'm with LtEveDallas and ByTheWay. I know it's not easy but our job as parents is to teach our children how to fit into the world, not to try to make the world revolve aroung them.

14 month olds are always hard work and until she learns you just have to put up with that. It is not unreasonable to expect some support from the ILs but to expect them to change their home dramatically is.

Not you Eve. Just the unbelievable smugness of some posters who believe that just becuae it worked for them everyone else MUST be doing it wrong.

I just get utterly frustrated at the lack of empathy sometimes.
Also I am extremely wound up thanks to the council leaving 6 great-big wheelie bins in my garden despite having been told that the other properties in the block do not have accesss to my garden. Or indeed room for 3 full-sized wheelie bins each.

We babyproofed for the kids I had when I was a childminder but not for the others, we didn't have medicines etc hanging around but we did have loads of lego/ playmobil everywhere. If you are that concerned then you will need to lay down the law and refuse to go there unless it changes.
We didn't have a stairgate but taught our children to come down the stairs safely BEFORE they learned to go up. Neither did we have a fire guard after I found that my 12 month old thought it was great fun to climb over the top and I would regulary find him sitting inside it! We just didn't light the fire until he was older.

Some kids are inevitably better than others. Some seem to do whatever their parents tell them, others don't. Not necessarily bad parenting. But at the end of the day it is THEIR house - they are the ones who live in it every day and to childproof a house for a couple of days a year for a visit? I do think it is down to watching your child like a hawk, or not staying over, or staying at a B&B while visiting. If you say there is a long distance so you go very infrequently, it won't be too long before you won't need to watch them so much. If it is so bad that you literally can't move without your child possibly breaking something or swallowing something, then actually perhaps don't go at all.

We have baby proofed but don't expect others to do it.
My parents have a more laxed attutude the have a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs and a fire guard on their open fire, however its a handmade fireguard by my grandad but all the grandchildren have always been told fire is hot etc and none go near it. I do have to remind dc 20 months but not very often. I go into the living room whenever I visit usually once or twice a week and pick up what I dont want her to touch. Sometimes she beats me to it and hands me an ashtray saying yack.
Yabu you do need to teach children not to touch certain things.

Ooo, can I swap my DS who is 2.11 and still absentmindedly puts stuff in his mouth, despite being told not to every fecking time for the past 2 years

OP, yanbu, it is incredibly stressful staying somewhere like that. I remember staying at a friends with crawling DS in the early autumn. Before we'd arrived, she'd decided to light the open fire and she also had a very nervous rescue dog at the other end of the room. DS's eyes lit up as we walked in and both mine and the poor dog's nerves were shot by the time we left the following morning
It wasn't my friend's fault, but by god, that was the most stressful evening of my life!

I just move furniture, and all the assorted bits of crap that could be broken or hurt my kids. She has yet to say anything to my face . It is my responsibility to ensure my kids are safe, so I make no apologies for doing so. I would not do this if visiting for a couple of hours, but if staying for a few nights then it has to be baby-proofed.

OK Ruby, I thought your posts were actually very sarcastic and uncalled for, no-one was being smug, and no-one had said anything about other posters MUST be doing things wrong. ByTheWay's second post was sarcastic, yes, but only as a reply to yours.

You may be wound up - but thats the fault of your Council surely, not anyone on here?

Actually in light of the OP's post BYTheWay's firts post reeked of smugness.

It would have got right on my wick even without the bins.

Because obviously no-one has ever thought of telling there children to like, not do stuff becuase it's wrong before have they?

OK, well I didn't read it like that - Maybe it's a frame of mind thing. Right now I'm pretty relaxed, so it didn't come across that way to me, maybe later it will.

Words on a screen and all that.

Their. Obviously. First also.
Heavens to Betsy.

We used to have the same thing with my in-laws. They had a low coffee table in the middle of their sitting room where they would put all the hot teas/coffees whenever they were made. Their attitude was "children have to learn the word 'no'"

Needless to say after months of stress and arguements over our 'different views', we stopped taking the DC to their house - it was just not an enjoyable visit anymore. Months later we heard a story from another relative who had visited with the DC's cousin who was then a toddler about a year old. Scaulding hot tea on the coffee table as usual - toddler went straight for it and tipped it over (and the tea went mostly forwards instead of towards them, thank goodness) and it went straight into FIL's crotch and caused nasty burns to his bits. Yes I am evil so I laughed my arse off when I heard this .

LtEveDallas nothing to do with the thread (although I am all for baby proofing) but I was really tempted to change my username to Peabody LOL

I think people are taking the idea of 'babyproofing' a bit far when saying the OP's inlaws shouldn't have to do it.
I don't think the OP is suggesting her in-laws rearrange everything they own, but maybe more that they don't leave scissors lying around at toddler height.
Toddlers do need to learn, yes, and we didn't really do much in the way of babyproofing.
But we were also aware that while dd was mostly quite good at remembering not to eat random things, and at removing them from her mouth if asked, she wasn't perfect and we could make everyone's life easier by not putting temptation in her way. So we didn't, and still don't (she's 3) leave tablets out, or scissors, for example. It only takes a second for her to grab a tablet and even if I said to spit it out, she might swallow it accidently. Why risk it? And why is it such a trauma to ask the child's grandparents just to put the scissors somewhere higher than the coffee table for a few days?
Babyproofing isn't an all or nothing approach. No, they shouldn't have to invest in vast amounts of expensive stuff or spend hours readying the house for the visit but it's not a big deal to move a few bits out of the way, surely? Especially if you want people to enjoy their visit with you and not just be desperate to get out of there so they can sit down for more than 10 seconds and relax, maybe drink a cup of tea etc?

For all those who put forward the idea that their kids are fine so it's ok to just teach kids and trust them, I'll put the other side. I know a family who buried their 7 year old three years ago.
He was, aged 2, visiting Gran's house. He found a bottle of bleach and swigged enough of it to burn his windpipe through before they found him . They were/are not a neglectful family - Mum went to the loo, and everyone seems to have assumed someone else was watching him. He ended up in A&E repeatedly after the original incident because any kind of cold became life-threatening. And at last his lungs gave up. Grandma has never, ever forgiven herself. They live with the worst possible consequences of 'watch him and it'll be fine' going wrong that you could. Clearly, it's extreme. But really, why would you risk it? When some precautions can be carried out easily and fast with almost no inconvenience to anyone?

Ruby... sorry you felt it was meant that way... it wasn't.....

just noticed among my friends lately that there is a tendency to NOT do the close parenting thing, but to rely on childproofing..... then asking why other people don't childproof before they visit...

one friend even complained her sister allowed people (the piano teacher) to wear shoes in the living area, so she couldn't let her toddler loose on the floor...

It's a great idea not to baby proof and teach children not to touch until the day your child trips and falls in the fire or chokes on the dice you told him not to put in his mouth.

Why would you want to live in a knife edge?

Worked in casualty in the 80s and saw far too many injured children fallen down unguarded stairs or swallowed tablets and needed stomach pumps.

Not worth it and sympathies op..

I'm in a dilemma in the middle. My elderly mother lives with us, and my dcs come to visit with my dgcs.

My dm needs lots of things around her in order for her to function (she has dementia) so access to her timers, her meds, her glasses, her music, photos books etc.

When dgcs come to visit we move things out of the way then spend ages trying to find where we put them.

And somewhere in between its our home - where me and dh live, and we like having our own things round us. If dd drops in at short notice I haven't necessarily had time to move knitting needles, pens, small objects. Maybe I was cooking dinner for everyone, maybe I was taking my dm to the bathroom, maybe I was buying some new craft stuff for dgcs. Or maybe I was sitting down for a little break.

I try hard to accommodate everyone's needs but I probably miss quite a lot. I would hate it if people stopped coming to see me, just because I didn't always get it done their way.

Well I could spend my whole day telling ds3 19 months no, get down, don't touch, take it out your mouth but I but I don't have the time to hover over him allday long. Instead choking/climbing hazards have been moved.

I'd rather wait until he is old enough for me to explain that things burn or can choke you etc.

I'm still able to teach him not to put things in his mouth, for example the remote, mobile phone. He's just not at risk of choking on something small while he's learning.

I met a mum at toddlers who believed, that because hers did, that you could control them entirely by saying 'no'. She once invited me to her house. She had a stereo in the front room ( 14mth old DS was into 'knobs' big time). Could not keep DS away from it. He was VERY obsessive at that age. I closed the door and she would 'accidently' open it again. I never went back (nor was I invited!).

A year later I was visiting a neighbour over the road from her. It was bath time and there was much wailing and screaming and sobbing coming through the window from her out of control and overtired 3 year old DD. Neighbour said it was like that every night, with a 'look'.

I don't think I could live like that. It is really not worth it. At least we had nice bathtimes and bedtimes.

Thanks ByThe Way. It's a bit of a sore point. remember my visits to the IL's impossibpe house all too well.

I really didn't want to go back.

With regard to the argument about teaching the child not to put things in their mouth....yes, you can try, BUT:

• my DC1 was an absolute angel in this regard, we had to do very little baby proofing, she rarely put anything in her mouth
• DC2 (happens to be 14mo) is a terror, everything goes into his mouth, he climbs everywhere, has to pick up everything.

No difference in my parenting of them. Those of you smugly commenting that it's possible to teach a child sound like me before I had my DC2!

We recently stayed at my PILs. They've adapted quite well to having GCs around and have done some baby proofing, but DC2 was a force they hadn't reckoned with. Needless to say, I didn't get to sit down and relax much whilst we were at their house. Even then, he still found quite a few things to pop in his mouth or fall over. I sympathise, OP, but don't know what else you can do. Maybe buy some of those Emmay winder things for blind cords, and put them on when you're there? (they can be removed)

Ruby: "It's just exhausting and if MIL expects conversational input from you rather than just a brief view of you as you head off after DC to prevent another disaster then it's not going to be a very enjoyable visit for anyone is it? "

Exactly. I'm not going to go into details, because the memory is so awful, but there was one occasion where I visited a relative who insisted on keeping me talking while my DD (then two) wandered off out of sight. The other two adults in the house who I hoped were keeping an eye on her weren't, and she did something that could easily have been fatal.

You want to be able to relax in someone's house and not to have to keep an eye on your child for every single second. The blind cords alone would have made me alarmed - there has been a spate of deaths of children found hanged on blind cords. It's not the slightest bit unreasonable to expect your ILs to take basic childproofing precautions.

Might you have put them off by asking for too much? At 14 months a child won't get a chance to get into trouble with blind cords, you need to focus their attention on immediate dangers. It sounds like there are plenty of those!