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)

I've calmed down a bit since yesterday, and have done another sweep of the house and moving obvious choking hazards / pointy things out of reach. Buying them a playpen is a good idea, we'll look into doing that.

DH actually cut the blind cords in the in-laws living room (which are low enough to be a danger to DS if he climbs onto the windowsills, which are about a foot off the floor, and utterly pointless, as they were opening curtains) after reading a feature on blind cord dangers in BIL's Daily Mail yesterday. So far the in-laws haven't said anything about DH doing that.....

Good reminder about the bleach too - that's something else we're trying to get the in-laws to sort out. They're in the habit of storing the bleach, flash etc in the same cupboard as the squash, lemonade and orange juice. It drives me nuts. I keep moving it out, and they keep moving it back. Apparently "If you look at the bottle before you pour it, it's not dangerous"

Wow. Bleach with the juice? What about when their eyesight goes? O.O

I'm hoping that they'll see sense before their eyesight goes.

babybythesea - yes I went to the loo during the toddler years..... no I did not leave my toddling child unsupervised downstairs whilst I went upstairs to go there, no - not even once.... they either came with me, or I put them in their room nearby...

(I can't always get the lid off the bleach - so I'm unsure how all these toddlers manage it... therefore I personally did not think of it as a risk)

why didnt dh just tie the blind cords up??

id be pissed off if someone came into my house and cut my blind cords off!!

a 14 month old is not in danger from confusing the bleach bottle with the squash bottle surely??

I am too teethkissing

Plus, which are low enough to be a danger to DS if he climbs onto the windowsills How about not leaving DS alone long enough to climb onto windowsills and get into danger with windowblind cords?

The dangers from Blind Cords are in places like bedrooms when DC are likely to be alone for a period of time. Not in a living room full of people.

As for the bleach/juice - Surely at 14 months the DC isn't going to be getting himself a drink? And by the time he is old enough to get himself a drink, he'll be old enough to read? And most squash bottles are a darn sight easier to open than bleach bottles.

OK, I give up, I'm actually being wound up by this and feeling sorry for the ILs - OP, you do realise they managed to bring up their DC without killing him don't you?

Our blind cords and curtain openers have a cut out - put too much pressure and the 2 plastic ends come apart - this sort of device doesn't work if people tie up the cords - a well meaning friend decided to do this once as what I had was "so dangerous " - NO it wasn't! - what she did -looping them up a bit higher and tying a loose knot WAS dangerous..

I'm shocked though... cutting through someone else's blind cord is not on - what if they don't realise and pull it through? how awful to ruin someone's property .... why would your child be left alone in the room at 14 months? why would it be allowed to climb on the windowledge anyhow... with anything up to 4 adults present?

i think Op has a touch of the PFBs

I bet In Laws cant wait for them to leave!

Umm, you think cutting someone else's blind cords has solved all the problems you'll have if you leave your 14 month-old to climb on windowsills? I don't let my DS climb on the sofa without me sitting where I can catch him. If he was walking along a fucking window sill the last thing I'd be worried about is blind cords.

I am not one of the insane posters who thinks liberal use of the word no controls a young toddler (probably because I have a young toddler), but keeping a close eye would solve a lot of these problems.

TBF I would watch my son and make sure he didn't but it sounds like OPs parents really do not give a toss, I imagine if she were out the room it would be when child had actually entangled themself in the blind cords that they would do something about it. Or fallen off the window ledge.

A playpen/travel cot would solve many problems. I can't believe, OP, that you would put so much energy into worrying about childproofing everything over ensuring someone is with your DS at all times - not difficult if you're visiting and not something you'll have to do for very much longer.

You have to alert children to dangers and you need to do this gradually over a long time. They don't suddenly hit school age and do exactly as they're told after a free rein for the first four years of their life.

cabinet locks?
until she can figure out how to move massive things, we've got a garden trellis in front of the tv unit.

talking of knives - my big sister once made herself a jam sandwich in the middle of the night.
she was 2.
completely unsupervised.
my mum found out because my sister cut her finger with the knife and went upstairs to ask mum to help her because she couldn't cut a length of plaster from the strip.

I am somewhat surprised that toddlers never get left alone for even a second? Our toddler has the run of the house, she's free to go anywhere, including the kitchen where she can go into the fridge and get herself food to eat.

At 16 months she seems completely aware what foods are edible straight from the fridge and never tries to eat ones which would need cooking (not that the raw meat and stuff is in packaging she could get into.)

She wonders upstairs or into other rooms to collect toys she's left behind or just to explore. The level of baby proofing is minimal, and I'm surprised by the number of people who baby proof to the nth degree and then still not let the toddler out of their sight. Seems extremely paranoid? Yes accidents can happen, and happen quickly, but a lack of independance and a lack of learning about risk as it's been outsourced to the parent is also bad I think.

We haven't babyproofed much, but no way could I let DS have unsupervised access to everything. I am amazed your DD is so good with the fridge, DS always wants to play with the milk, spin glass jars of mayo, climb the shelves...

YANBU
It must be really exhausting for you having to watch him like a hawk when you are there.

Personally I would definitely not rely on your inlaws to watch him as they don't sound as if safety is an issue. In my experience, I don't think other people (including inlaws) are that switched on anyway when it comes to looking out for other people's children.
I know a little boy who was 4 years old when he fell against an unprotected fire, and he has now got a bad scar on his face & ear (it practically melted his ear), and he was left for less than a minute.
I would say to always go with YOUR instincts when it comes to safety.
Btw I have friends with little ones, and before they come over I go through the house downstairs (they can't get up stairs), and get anything that could be potentially dangerous out of the way - it might take me 10 minutes, but it is well worth it, and friends can relax a lot more than if they are worried about choking on things etc etc all the time.
Good luck with your inlaws - sounds like you need it!

OP, why on earth are you staying with them if you have such issues with the safety of their house? I don't get it.

They're not going to change. Either you put up with it, watch your DC and stop getting so annoyed, or you don't spend do much time there. No point making a song and dance and vandalising their property by cutting blind cords whatever

Fair enough, ByTheWay. Your point about taking them with you raises the other side of it though.
I babyproofed a bit. Not extensively, but I did move things to accomodate dd's curiosity, put in a stair gate, moved all the bleaches and medicines into a high cupboard, put valued breakables out of reach etc. Which might well get me labeled as a bit PFB.
BUT, I left her alone. I chose not to move her from room to room depending on whether I needed a wee or not. If she was engrossed in a game, she could play for half an hour or more from the age of about 18 months and I never interrupted (unless we were going out or something). Neither did I stick her in a playpen - she was free to roam a room and although I stuck my head round the door periodically, (if I was cooking, say)and I always listened out to make sure I could hear her chatting to herself, I trusted that the room was safe enough that I didn't need to hover over her.

Different approach is all, not necessarily more or less protective.
I don't find she's especially hard work anywhere else, so it's not like I'm depriving her of the chance to learn things. As she's got older, more things have become reachable and as she is now getting to a stage where you can properly reason with her (almost 4) it's easy to point out what she can't touch, and trust that she'll tend to obey. Having said that, I tended to move things up out of her way when she was younger (and I don't mean being at a friends for an hour, I mean if we were staying with family for a week or more). I just shifted things as I came across them. No big deal for me and certainly no big deal for her grandparents who would rather a) she was safe b) their stuff wasn't broken and c) everyone relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.

And I don't know how the boy got the top off the bleach.
I know the family but am not close enough to ask about details like that when they were already dealing with a tragedy.
It could have been in a different bottle, it could have been the top wasn't on properly, it could just have been extremely unlucky.
I still say, why risk it?

Years ago, before I was a parent myself, a friend came to stay with her two-year old. I hadn't babyproofed. Almost the first thing the child did was go into the kitchen, find the cupboard under the sink and pull out a bottle of bleach. It was quite an impressive demonstration, really, of why childproofing is important.

People who pooh-pooh this stuff like to convey the impression that they are free and easy risk takers, who like to bring their children up to think for themselves, learn independence, all the rest of it. It works fine right up to the moment when your child swallows bleach or hangs themselves on a blind cord.

Of course most children don't swallow bleach or hang themselves. It doesn't mean it's a good idea to give them the opportunity. Lots of us who are older remember a time when we didn't have to wear seat belts in cars. Most of us survived - but don't let's forget the ones who didn't.

Scholes34:
A playpen/travel cot would solve many problems. I can't believe, OP, that you would put so much energy into worrying about childproofing everything over ensuring someone is with your DS at all times - not difficult if you're visiting and not something you'll have to do for very much longer.

You have to alert children to dangers and you need to do this gradually over a long time. They don't suddenly hit school age and do exactly as they're told after a free rein for the first four years of their life.

This is really interesting Scholes, because I would tend to agree with you in principle but clash completely on how to achieve things!
I agree on the 'why expend so much energy' but I find that babyproofing, at least a bit, makes for a far more peaceful life than having to ensure someone is with your child every second. For a few hours, fine, but for a few days or more I find hovering far more taxing and stressful than taking a few basic precautions and then being able to relax and enjoy the company of my inlaws. (As do they, thankfully!). As a result, I look forward to going to stay with them and enjoy the visits.

I also agree on alerting children to danger but I don't agree that babyproofing automatically equates with a free rein (which makes it sound like there's no discipline at all). We had plenty of discipline so dd knows that no means no, which means when we do go elsewhere she knows not to touch if I tell her. But I chose not to fight that battle all day every day at home - I moved things out of her way instead. As she's got bigger (almost four), things I moved have become within her reach and the house has gradually de-babyproofed, but with the added advantage that a) she really does understand the discipline and I don't have to tell her the same thing over and over and b) she can understand explanations as to why she can't touch/have something. So I have achieved the same thing, a gradual learning of what is dangerous or not, with a totally different method. And again, because I hate 'hovering', I did it in a way that meant I didn't have to be at her side every single second but could still be sure she was safe.

Different method, same result.

People who pooh-pooh this stuff like to convey the impression that they are free and easy risk takers, who like to bring their children up to think for themselves, learn independence, all the rest of it

Oh God, I'm going to resign!

You said in one sentence what I've taken three or four posts to not manage to say!
Trying to work out what 'non babyproofers' do, people have mentioned always watching them, never leaving them in a room by themselves, etc etc. I don't find that a particularly free and easy approach to things - I find it far more intensive than taking some basic safety steps. I'm actually beginning to wonder now if I'm negligent because I have left dd to her own devices right from the start. I made sure the room was safe, and then I did other things. I never ever felt the need or desire to supervise her every movement. I went to the loo, had showers, cooked dinner etc etc, all without moving her from the room where she was happily playing. I just made sure the room was safe first. My style of not being constantly on alert is starting to seem like the lax one, rather than the babyproofing being over the top!

I dont have any children, but I do have various nieces and nephews of different ages who come to stay.

The first time I had relatives come to stay, I did my best to babyproof, following guidelines from the web. The result was that the parents assumed it was fine to let the kids run around with very little supervision, and we ended up with a broken table, shattered glass everywhere and two very distressed but thankfully unharmed children.

Since then, I've stopped babyproofing. It is bloody obvious that my house is not safe for children, and that if they come to visit, they must be watched all the time until their parents are confident in their behaviour. (And actually my nephews are astonishingly good at understanding what they must not touch.) I'm more than happy for people not to visit because of this.

I admit that I was a bit surprised at DH cutting the blind cords without telling his parents first. But luckily they don't seem to mind, and as I said, it was for opening/closing curtains, and they can be opened/closed more easily by hand anyway.

If DH is to be believed, he was a little angel who never got into trouble as a child, so maybe the in-laws were expecting DS to be the same. Anyway, we'll be investing in a playpen and watching DS like a hawk until he's learnt what not to touch.