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 would get cheap second hand play pen then. 23 MO DS would just pile up toys and climb out! How often are you going to visit on the next year? it sounds like a possibly expensive solution.

the only thing that would worry me is the blind cord and i would be buying these and sticking them there if DC was ever to go there again. My friend lost her grandchild as a result of a blindcord

www.amazon.co.uk/blind-cord-safety/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=blind%20cord%20safety&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ablind%20cord%20safety

This is far too long but once I'd started writing I could n't stop.
Before I had kids I loved my PILs house, it was quirky, full of stuff they'd accumulated over the years, downstairs cloakroom, open fire, ensuite loo to guest area, garden room full of low tables covered in glass baubles and water fountain.

When we had baby we were living in a buidling site but the PIL have never managed to comprend what a nightmare their house was for us to visit. MIL likes to allow the kids to pull all the stuff out the kitchen cupboard because it was fun for them to play with the pots and pan like her children did but she now stores most of Lakelands toxic shelf there to. I could n't leave dd in the bedroom whilst I went to the loo because the low window cills were covered in ornaments, the table cloth over a low table was ideal for a toddler learning to walk to pull themselves up on. Open fire with trip hazard cill, squirty cleaning stuff on floor by all toilets, slug pellets inthe open greenhouse.....

As we provided the first GC we get the brunt of it all, my 'older kids' 4&2 now get blow up mattresses in the room with MILs extensive stained glass making stuff, six homemade blinds with knotted cords, decorative shit everywhere, bottles of posh liquors stored under the sofa, the driftwood collection with its rusty nails sticking out at toddler eye level. We choose to stay in a tent one summer visit - it was so much easier.

Between raising her family and the arrival of the GCs they'd accumulated 25 years worth of 'stuff', jumble sales, car boots, dead relatives stuff something new goes in there every week. We're starting out, bare plaster, large rug, pictures on walls. We're in a different risk factor level.

When we arrive to stay DH obviously immediately relaxes iin his childhood home and is easily distracted. The GPs love us visiting and can 't understand that they have built this lovely home that we don't visit more then twice a year.
My relationship with the PIL in now tricky partly to do with the fact that what should have been a refuge from extensive building works was in fact awful and still is. I am now dreading the three days/two nights over Christmas that I'll have to supervise. Too cold to stay in a tent, tealights burning all over the place, Christmas baubles artfully piled on plates in the kids 'bedroom' just waiting for an early riser to explore.

Hospitality cuts bother ways, we try to be good guests but the hosts could provide surely just one safe 'area', just one room would make all the difference.

No advice but a rant is good.... MIL can only remember her three children having three tantrums in total, ever. The childcare advice is a whole other thread.

A toddler shouldn't be unsupervised to the extent that they can put their head in a blind cord in someone else's house. My grandparents never moved their ornaments, we were told very firmly not to touch and were closely supervised, same with my kids at my parents' house and inlaws. I would never have told someone else to cut their blind cords.
You are the parents, you should be supervising your child. If a 14 year old was fiddling with backgammon pieces why did you let them touch it?
When you have toddlers you can't sit and relax especially when visiting people and you can't let them out of your sight.
If your kid is an early riser and in an unfamiliar house then you get up early with them.

2rebecca - obviously I get up when the kids get up in a strange place and I start the 12 hours of supervision. And I know their house their rules but would you think that a suitable nightlight for a 4 year old would be 36 antique glass baubles covered in fairylights on a coffee table. Would you get upset when one got broken when your curious child picked one up, tripped over the embroided draught excluder snake and dropped it.
It's easy to find squirty cleaning sprays at MILs but the dustpan and brush is well hidden. So at six am I have already failed to supervise a child, woken the house rummaging under the stairs for cleaning equipment, dumped two kids on DH to look after and moved the dog so she does n't cut her feet. Or would removing the decorative stick of ponce from my MILs arse in order for us to just use a normal, everyday desk lamp for illumination be sufficient.

Warning: I will except no defense of my MIL sh is wrong and I am totally right, end of matter. Full stop. Told you so. FACT. {smile]

2rebecca - see I think that's fine for a few hours but for a whole week it's crap. Not to be able to relax at all for a week is just pants. It would certainly lead to me not wanting to visit because a visit became a stressful round of "No, get off, don't touch". As it is, I am lucky. My inlaws live in New Zealand so when we visit it's for a month at a time and they are more than happy for me to move a few things around to make the place a bit safer and therefore my visit is a much more relaxed affair, leaving me free to enjoy their company and not be on a knife-edge the whole time.
I wonder if, after a week of chasing the toddler round and not being able to finish a cup of tea as the toddler grabs yet another valuable/pair of scissors, the OP will decide not to visit until he's a bit older, leading to cries of 'My DIL is keeping my grandchild from me'. I think CarefullEugene is right - hospitality cuts both ways. You do have to make more effort in someone else's home but if they ask you to visit and want to see you (or your offspring) surely it's also a decent thing to make at least some effort to make the visit enjoyable?

I'm always a bit about "extreme" positions one way or another on the subject of babyproofing (well on many subjects, but we're talking about babyproofing) - some people seem to want to show how laissez faire and relaxed they are and how well their children can be taught never to touch anything they shouldn't while others seem to think that any conceivable hazard left in the vicinity of a child is negligent parenting.

But the thing is, we don't really "baby-proof" our homes against some generic baby, we do what is needed with respect to the safety of our own actual children, into whose behaviour we usually have a bit of insight, as well as in accordance with how carefully and vigilantly we're going to be able to supervise those children.

How much actual babyproofing a person does in their own home is up to them. (FWIW we don't do much - we have socket covers, since we live in mainland Europe, with scary 2 pin plugs, I used to use a stairgate at night only, and make sure blind cords are well out of the way, but that's all - I just say no about kitchen cupboards etc - and I also say "no" about plug sockets and blinds; DC know they aren't allowed to touch them even though ours are protected).

If someone was staying in my house who had stricter views on safety than me, I would be happy to try and accommodate them, but I wouldn't necessarily know which measures needed to be taken for their child to be safe before they arrived. My home is reasonably safe for my children but that doesn't mean it is completely safe for any child.

So it would have to be up to the parents of that child to do what needed to be done/be more vigilant/ suggest things for me to do. Surely any sensible person would be happy for that (even if inwardly rolling their eyes). If you're a host, you should surely try and make your guests as comfortable as possible

You do have to make more effort in someone else's home but if they ask you to visit and want to see you (or your offspring) surely it's also a decent thing to make at least some effort to make the visit enjoyable?

Yes, I agree

We didn't really baby proof our house, except for stair gates, but naturally, precious things started to gravitate on to higher shelves, we were more careful with cups of tea and made sure pairs of scissors were put away

My MiL has a collection of tiny crystal ornaments. They're everywhere. She also had bowls of pot pourri every where, dried flowers, etc, etc. Every surface is covered in something.

DD1 was like a magpie to these crystal ornaments, but mostly she was happy to just sit and look at them and a firm no worked to make sure she didn't touch anything. DD2 was a different kettle of fish, she was obsessed with them, and the pot pourri, and we'd spend entire visits taking things away, telling her no, removing them from her mouth. We basically followed her everywhere she went - all this stuff was like all her Christmasses had come at once. We never got to sit and chat, or have a cup of tea, which was kind of the whole point of visiting the inlaws in the first place - chat and have a catch up.

Everytime I'd take something off DD2 and put it out of her reach, MiL would come along and move it back. Incredibly stressful and eventually we just stopped going. We never really got to see the inlaws as we were chasing a bloody minded toddler around, so why bother?

She always used to say that a firm no always worked with her kids, but as DH pointed out, she never had millions of crystal animals or bowls of pot pourri laying around when him and his siblings were growing up to touch in the first place. A bit like we don't have that sort of stuff in our house.

I never expected her to empty her entire house, just cut us a bit of slack.

When we went to my mum's house, by the time we left there'd be a tidemark of ornaments at toddler height, she just moved it all back when we left. No big deal

Based on what you say, I have the exact same problem and feel your pain entirely!! My PIL house is full of utter crap lying around - ornaments EVERYWHERE, medication scattered all over the place, open bottles of nail varnish on the coffee table, hair grips, nuts and bolts etc etc....(don't get me started on the thick layer of dust that covers EVERYTHING) All within easy reach of my 12 month old son and lots of it. I'd seriously be there all day if I tried to tidy it all away. I'm on edge the entire time we're there and I get seriously wound up about the fact that they clearly don't care too much for their GS otherwise they'd at least make some effort to make the place safe. I've never once had to have a "baby proofing" conversation with my own parents as they've got the common sense to move breakables/choking hazards plus they keep a reasonably tidy home. As for a stern no being enough to keep my DS from harm? Hahahahaha! At this age everything goes In the mouth no matter how many times you tell them. At that age it just isn't going to sink in so why take the risk?! In my opinion it just isn't worth it

YANBU. My parents refuse to childproof. My mum likes everything just-so, and doesn't like change. We stayed with them for a while, and I couldn't relax I had to watch DS's every move. The house of full of hazards. My mum refused to let me move a pair of big garden secateurs for example. They were kept in an open bag, with a load of other potentially hazardous gardening implements, at toddler hand height! She sees it as my job to watch DS and an imposition to move her stuff. I found it really stressful.

We also stayed with MIL for a while. She's very happy to childproof stuff for us, no problem! But then in that house we had no privacy, she came and went from our bedroom as she pleased for example, taking our clothes to be washed for example without asking us as if we were children, I found that intrusive and weird! At least we had privacy while at my parents!

Every family has weird ways IMO! There's no such thing as normal, and if you're staying with your parents / ILS for any length of time and managing not to want to throttle each other on a daily basis, you're all doing really well IMO!

Sorry, I haven't read all the thread, but is this a temporary situation? Are you there visiting or is this a more permanent arrangement?

Yanbu as you are staying with them. I remember how stressful we used to find it when we took the dds to people's houses when they were toddlers and we were constantly having to move them away from things, but obviously when you're just visiting for a few hours, you can't expect people to rearrange everything for you, but if you're staying at their house it's different. You don't want to be constantly on edge the whole time.

Lol at the idea that you can just tell toddlers not to touch things or put them in their mouths, my four year old still bloody puts things in her mouth. On the other hand, some children don't really do that much even as toddlers, I remember years ago when dd1 was in the garden at a friend's house and she'd put stones in her mouth, but my friend said her wee girl didn't really out things in her mouth, and they were both pretty young then.