To think this woman is naive?

[AnotherSpinningFuckingRainbow]

This person has just had a newborn baby and claims they will never move any of their numerous ornaments, small and chokeable knicknacks etc, as when children start to toddle, you just teach them not to touch...

AIBU to laugh heartily at this assertion?

Exactly, moomin.

Yes of course you tell them no, and teach them not to touch, it is just that some take longer to learn than others. (5 and a half years in ds's case) I child proofed the living room to protect the children. they were locked in with a stair gate too. the cupboards have locks and no handles. the windows have locks. electric sockets are hidden behind furniture. up high does not help as ds climbs.

It is not possible to supervise everysecond of everyday, I need to wee sometimes, and cook. or put the other one to bed or (used to) change a nappy where I can physically manage it.

ds is now very good as rules are rules and shall not be deviated from. (except during meltdowns)

oh and I had to protect them from a parent who was incapable of seeing the danger in things, such as having windows open with freerange, climbing toddlers in a second floor room)

Safe environment, do your worst is my parenting philosophy

Yes, definitely. Life is far easier when you know they can't kill themselves in the living room while you're doing the washing up and praying you haven't left a felt-tip pen lying around

But the curious child can be put to good use. My mother bought him a drum. I left him with a pair of ELC safety scissors having said I wonder what would happen if the top of the drum was cut off . Solved that problem nicely.

My mother was like this about her home , she had taught us not to touch , and my first two children learnt not to touch her things and then i had DS2 and well anything she values has moved now

I think some children are more open to the idea of listening than others , my mother always backed up her requests with very loud bellowing and a hand slap . DS2 isnt bothered about shouting or having his hand slapped , so thats my mothers strategies exhausted .

windmill

How do you teach them not to? DD will hurt herself three times but will still not listen (10 months and opening drawers).

We don't have many bits and bobs around the house but we did have a christmas tree this year. Ds was 11 months and walking. I just told him not to touch it and he didn't.

apologies to ASFR.

Very gracious of you Holiday

Some years ago I saw an Oprah type programme on 'spanking' as they call it in the US (means something slightly different here methinks), and hearing a mum say she would never put her heated curlers out of reach of the toddler because he had to learn not to touch and the way he learnt was to get a beating slap whenever he went near them. Poor child had several slaps before he got the message, and several burns. I would personally keep them out of reach but that's me.

We never moved anything. Had some 2p's in a VHS (Showing my age). They managed to not drink bleach, get in the medicine cabinet, choke on stones, eat shit, and so forth. I personally found, appropriately parenting your child worked wonders. No meant no.

well heated things are just stupid and to smack a child for touching them is just idiotic , My dds were never that bothered although like another poster mine liked to post things in the video player

I personally found, appropriately parenting your child worked wonders
But what is appropriate parenting? In my opinion, it is appropriate to let a very young child move around and explore as much as possible, when it is natural and the way they learn. I was not interested in fostering blind obedience.

We have also had to move very little, as said depends on the child, for instance people freak out about xmas trees, neither of ours did more than one or two casual touches that was it....

Smile and nod and laugh here with us HA HA HA, poor innocent woman, she doesn't know what's going to hit her!

Dont some of you move medicines, disinfectant etc?

Weren't they interested in wires, and the world around them?

FIL left a just sharpened knife out when Dh was young and he has a scar on his thumb from where he cut himself with it. FIL also left a tube of super glue lying on the arm of the sofa when we visited with Ds1 once and I had to spend an age trying to get it off his lips, teeth and hands whist MIL made a panicked phone call to the Dr surgery, we had been in the door 5 mins if lucky!
We kept everything out the way as it was just easier and saved accidents from happening, Ds1 loved to clear the kitchen cupboard of tins and jars and was mighty pissed when we bought cupboard locks. Dd and Ds2 (twins) were never as bad, though I did find Dd in the tumble dryer once with a huge grin, but then they did spend most of their time terrorising each other!

DS is allowed to touch most things and terrible parent that I am where the screwdrivers are if something's broken. A stair gate was a must - he's on the floor below us and we have incredibly steep stairs. Now that he's learnt to open the gate I tie string around it. He shouts for the scissors in the morning.

Each to their own.

I was a bit like this with my eldest 3 - moved dangerous stuff but just said no and they never really fiddled or broke stuff. I was pretty smug!

Then no 4 came along. We had cupboard locks everywhere, moved everything, he was a nightmare. once at about 18 months, he ended up painting a himself, a cabinet, a leather chair and the parquet with white painting by numbers paint after extracting the kit from a locked cupboard and then opening the tiny paint pot (how? No one else can get the sodding pots open...) when I was actually in the room (he was partially shielded by a table.) Another memorable incident was when he drank oil from a reed diffuser and ended up in casualty overnight stinking the place out with peach pot pourri fragrance (I was right next to him when he did this).

Yanbu.

Wouldn't work with my DS. i 'just tell him no' till i am blue in the face. He totally ignores me. He crawled at 7months and walked at 9months. No meant nothing to him. I know other children who one 'no' was all it took.

I read an article years ago, about 2000 ish I think, that made me laugh so hard I kept it and still have it!

Mother and Baby interviewed 3 pregnant women about how they expected their homes to change when the their babies came.

All of them said that they would keep the toys in the babies room as they wanted the lounge to be an adult space. They didnt want to move anything ornament wise and one said that she hated fingerprints on things so would be keeping the baby away from all of their glass fronted furniture.

After the birth they all had plastic boxes full of toys in the lounge, the ornament obsessed one had packed most away and got plastic corner guards on everything. One moved to a house with a spiral staircase and then moved again 6 months later as they couldnt get a stair gate to fit, and had to wedge the sofa across the bottom! Oh and the one that said that the baby would sleep in their room until he was one so her husband could keep his study had to turn the study into a nursery at 10 weeks as they hadnt checked that the cot would fit in their room and the baby had outgrown the moses basket :o

I agree that it is a personality thing. With my lot I would say it is about half and half, some were ok but DS2 and DD4 have both been little buggers for getting into stuff, as was DD1!

We got rid of all our low, pointy edged, glass furniture by the time DS was 3 months. We purposely moved to a flat with no stairs when he was 10 months . Nothing is kept in our low cupboards and all our shelves have ds's things on the lowest 3 shelves. I grew up in house where my parents didn't think things should be adapted for children. I didn't want ds living like that, i wanted him to feel it was his space too. I also didn't want him to just constantly be told no, which we found ourselves doing at the beginning.

Yes I had the attitude of "they'll need to learn what they can and can't touch". Then my favourite vase was smashed and I moved the precious stuff.
I had a friend who refused a stair gate using the same argument - "they'll learn". Her DD fell down the stairs. What did she learn? She also didn't cool food down using the same argument. I saw her daughter burn her mouth on a roast potato. Yes I suppose her DD learnt not to eat hot food straight away, or to take a little more care. My DDs learnt the same thing, maybe a bit slower, and without the pain.

MrsKoala you make a very good point.

Surely the home is the childs home too? And constantly being told "no dont touch" must be horrible for the child to hear.

I love the fact that DD can root around in the coffee table and pull everything onto the floor! She wont hurt herself and she is learning a valuable lesson in tidying up (although her latest line is "You help mummy!" which I fell for once until I saw her sat down watching TV as I did it :o)