To not be able to work out a 'safe' place for our Christnas tree

[Rushyswife]

Now, before I begin I should confess that IABU for the following...

1. our Christmas tree is artificial (dh trying to be thoughtful and suprise me our first Christmas together- feel I have to use it now or it's even worse for the environment!

)2. I am aware in some people's eyes 1st December is too early to put up the Christmas decorations !

But I am really worried about the safety aspect of my tree. My ds is 10 months and although he is not crawling he can kind of commando crawl and roll his way pretty much anywhere! Our Christmas tree is 5ft but has always seemed pretty light, I'm worried about ds pulling it onto him and there isn't a place I can put it where it will be out his way. I am also worried about baubles dropping on him etc.

Am I being really stupid? How do normal people combine babies and Christmas trees?

How about this?
www.saifou.com/entry/19224.html

We're just going to have our tree in the corner of the room , our 12 mo twins are crawling/cruising but are never left alone in the room as they would trash the place!

Tree behind sofa or in playpen or behind playpen?

monkeymamma when you live in a country with a massive forestry industry, the fact that a few hundred thousand of the trees that are thinned from the plantations end up in the city incinerators, heating the town, rather than in woodchips for the paper industry (or whatever it is they do with them), can't really be that much of an environmental impact, surely. Ok, there's transport and so, but still, not all real christmas trees are terrible environmental sins.

JesusITCV you forgot the infrared motion sensors.

We've had our tree up for a few days now and 1yoDD just isn't interested in it!
Usually she can sniff out anything fragile/dangerous but for some reason doesn't want to touch it! Perhaps it's imposing?

So, we bougt a new (fake) tree today, and put it up. DS thought the box was great. Them I showed him how to hang up the baubles (all non-shatterable, mostly fabric and ribbons). Oops.

My DS loves hanging things. Snce he could walk, he's been moving anything with a loop, keyrings are a favourite, from one dresser drawer knob to another around the house. I made him a hook board, from an offcut of wood and some random hooks and screw rings I had around the house. And he still plays with it months later.

Result: one hook board covered in Christmas baubles. One tree bare as far up as he can reach, and lots of very vocal indications that he would like us to hand him the ones out of his reach, thank you very much.

Sigh.

I put three heavy duty metal loops in the ceiling joist, and for many years we hung a tree from them with heavy duty fishing line, so invisible.

so we had a floating tree, the babies/toddlers could look up from underneath at all the pretty lights but couldn't quite reach.

It much easier for vacuuming as well.

Tie the top to a tack in the picture rail (or tiny cup hook screwed into wall) with normal white sewing thread, doubled over a few times. Works a treat.

I'm the same i'm not putting mine up until xmas eve then i will see how he gets on with it, i am however going to buy more lights to be put on the stairs in the living room and outside and getting a few things to decorate the window ledge. Adsa are doing a small LED tree for £5 i might get one of those for the side table since it's light enough he'll not do any harm.

Well I think that as long as the tree isn't covered in highly fragile baubles you will probably be okay with a Christmas Tree. We have had a Christmas Tree though DCs babyhood and toddler years and survived to tell the tale. It is the reason why we opted for an artificial tree though and sadly still use it!

And we too (up until this year) have always put the tree up on the first Sunday of Advent so don't think you're alone on this front!

However we have a frisky kitten this year (as well as a grand madame pedigree cat of a certain age) and she's into everything so slightly worried that we will come home to a total wreck of a tree - hence our reluctance to put the tree up, methinks!

Our DCs, when crawling, used to lie under the tree looking up at all the lights etc......

10 years ago we put ours behind a BabyDan Configure gate (google it) - we also had our very expensive adult stuff - hifi etc behind this as well so it was a permanent feature to cordon off one end of the living room. It is a variation on using a playpen.

I also did not use tinsel when they were young (now no longer like it) as it is a choking hazard. Even with this solution my pfb used to throw things at the baubles on the tree so some did break lol. So it is worth re-evaluating the type you use bearing in mind none will be babysafe where choking is concerned.

They weren't available then but fibre-optic trees are probably a good choice when kids are young as they are not very heavy if pulled over and have interesting lighting effects with no need for other decorations.

I'm afraid if you want to be able to relax, it is yet another of those things you have to change as parents of young babies.

Meeple, I don't think real trees are an environmental crime at all (especially as most are locally grown), I was just responding to the sense of shame some posters seem to have about their fake branches. And in a general sense I think it is marginally greener to buy one item and use it every year rather than buy a new/real one each time. (I can see both sides as I grew up with real ones - and lived in the middle of a forest! - but as an adult love my fake 'berries' tree.)

On a separate note I am very impressed with your ds and his hanging abilities! Monkeybaby can only un-hook so far (and loves yanking things out of drawers, boxes, off shelves etc). I'm looking forward to him learning to put things IN boxes etc!

Lol. If he learns that MonkeyMam, he can come teach DS. Mind you DS loves putting things in boxes, it's just that they are seldom what belongs in the box, or what we want put away!

We just put ours up as normal but put no decs on the lower branches apart from a couple of soft toy style ones. DD hasn't yet brought it down on top of her or broken anything, in fact she's pretty much ignoring it now!