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?

Definitely depends on the child and obviously the parents teaching approach,I have photo frames and ornaments etc and my dc almost 4 does not touch them same in her grandparents house as they have always been there and not for her to touch.
My nieces and nephews on the other had everything has to be moved or hidden including the house phone as they do not listen..my precious lamp only thing nice in my housegot tipped over and smashed weeps by one dn.

Tbf hot hair tongs or irons and anything dangerous should still be left out of reach of a dc at whatever age.

I am astounded that there are children who dont explore. Didnt know such children existed.

We never kid proofed.

I found it safer to house proof the kid than the other way around.

That way it travels with them.

We encourage dd to be gentle when she touches fragile things - nicer than being told not to touch them at all. We have a collection of Sylvac face-pots (hideous thing - no idea why we like them) in the kitchen, and she loves to go along touching all their noses, shouting " nosenosenosenosenose....", but has never broken one yet.
She is generally supervised pretty closely though, being not yet two - am sure when she is older she will break loads of stuff!

Those face pots are great!

We could all be talking at cross purposes here, though, couldn't we? One persons version of childproofing could be very different to another's. For example, we have fairy lights in the fireplaces, books from floor to ceiling, drawers she can easily open, vases with twigs yes, I know, bathroom baskets full of (non-poisonous) stuff etc. So there's a lot she can get hold of and create an absolute state with, but nothing dangerous. I consider the house child-proofed as I know she can't hang herself, drink bleach or get the glass casserole dishes out on her own. Other people might consider the number of things she can access not to be child-proofed.

I reckon more people move immensely breakable and potentially dangerous things out of the way without quite realising what they are doing - so while they're saying they've not childproofed, as they've not done it deliberately, they've still tucked blind cords away and made sure that the kids can't get at the bleach.

You swap her for a different more biddable child, of course

Hiddenhome. My friends DD was taught not to touch the stove and didn't...until she tripped and fell against it face first. Luckily not scarred but a nasty burn on her cheek. Been reading this and find it quite funny. I made our house nik nak(Stuff I would be sad if it got broken) free so I could relax without constantly telling my 3 little monkies 'Don't touch that'. Some touch and wont listen...some don't touch...surely its that simple?

Marylou62, that's what I thought. There's no inherent superiority in either course.

Cotherstone - if that was our house, fairy lights would be eaten, books pulled of shelves and torn, all drawers emptied and climbed into till ripped out/broken, vases smashed by being rolled along the floor, all stuff in a heap on the floor and jumped/stamped on while shouting 'bay' (seems to be the battle cry).

I see child proofing not just about preventing danger to the child but also preserving my sanity. I am currently at my parents who have exciting things like speakers free standing mid living room, and am already pissed off as been saying 'no' for 2 hours straight.

Oh, I agree completely MrsKoala. I agree with childproofing. It's your kids house as well, after all, so best to make it an environment where they aren't constantly being told "no, no, no" and parents know they can leave the children alone for a while without them killing themselves. I was using those as an example of how people have different levels of childproofing - as in I consider my house childproofed because I know DD no longer has any interest in these things. So without seeing everyone's house we have no idea what they are really meaning when they say their house is or isn't childproofed.

Cotherstone. I am nowhere near as sure about that as you. It seems there are thousands of homes where dangerous things and medicines etc are in reach of small kids.
Even if you have the perfect, non touch kid, what happens when their little friends and cousins come round to play?

I didn't mean to say that every house is safe I just meant that I imagine a lot of posters who say they haven't made any changes probably have, just without realising they've consciously done it.

I like my stuff (and had a lot of delicate or heavy glass ornaments) and DD is a curious cheeky little thing, so everything breakable has been removed if at all possible - I'd far rather move it than risk broken glass/choking/being anxious about stuff/constantly saying "no", and I don't mind if my things sit in a box for a few years - keeps the house tidier anyway (though to be fair I do have the option of keeping breakable stuff in my office).

DD started crawling early and since then had been a terror for getting into things/everything in mouth - "don't touch" is just an incitement to touch even more! Every day we send half our time putting back all our books from the shelves and rescuing the remote control/house phone/mobiles anyway. It's exhausting enough putting back all the non-breakables. When we go anywhere else she's immediately off to we how everything works/what she can pick up. I'm hoping by about 3 she might be trainable to leave things alone... [sceptical]

Oh and YY to the reins, too - DD is a bolter. I guess a lot if the differences come from how early your child crawls/walks etc - DD crawled before 6m and walked at 12m and simply hadn't the cognitive capacity at those ages to understand and remember "no" and "don't touch" etc. - she knows what "no" means but she still simply hasn't the cognitive ability to understand the consequences of doing something at her age (14m) so it would just be stupid to rely on trying to tell her no to train her not to bolt into the road/grab something dangerous. I have a friend with a very biddable baby who was only just sitting at 8m and didn't crawl until over 1 and didn't walk until about 17mo - by the time she could walk she was able cognitively to understand "no".

My DN walked at 10m in comparison and there was no way of training him not to do something as he simply wasn't old enough to understand no matter what you did (short of slapping him I guess but I think most people would rather remove a few ornaments than slap a 10mo repeatedly....)

never child-proofed the house at all, but I was quite lucky and DS seemed to listen and remember what he was and wasn't allowed to touch/do indoors. Never had child locks back in the day, although he never tried the kitchen cupboards etc. Guess i was lucky. I think installing a good understanding early on of "dont touch" etc is the right way though, as it makes visiting people and places much more pleasurable as you cannot expect everyone to child proof on your behalf.

Saying that, I do move my glass floor vases when my friends DS who is 2 comes over, he's generally boistrous and runs around so i wouldn't risk it with him. His parents are very good though and have told him not to touch my kitchen cupboards or living room cabinet which he doesn't. Different strokes for different folkes and all that...

blah I presume you moved dangerous things from the lower cupboards in your kitchen (cleaning fluids and the like), and made sure knives were out of reach and medicines locked away.

Otherwise you seemed to have put a lot of faith in luck!

I don't think your friend is being a particularly good parent in telling their child not to touch your cupboards, it's just good manners.

DS was fab, never touched a thing (though there was one unfortunate incident involving a digestive and a video player) DD on the otherhand was demonic.

The worst she did was manage to pile toys underneath the kitchen/dining room hatch. Her toy mountain was big enough that she was able to hoik herself up and through the hatch on to the kitchen work top. There she found my iron tablets (in a childproof bottle) and managed to open them. Fortunately we caught her at that point, just as she was crawling around the kitchen worktops on her little mission towards the sink. She was 18 months at the time. Never in a million years would I have assessed that as a risk.

Gave me a bloody good excuse to get the hideous 70's hatch filled in though, so to this day, thanks DD

I moved a couple of I really liked and left the rest and saw it as a good way of decluttering and getting rid of things I had always secretly hated.

Miaow My DD was a terrible climber. It started with a thud one morning at around 11 months old, rushed into her room to find her sat on the floor laughing. I'm still to this day not sure how she managed to launch herself out of her cot like that, but we had to go out and buy a toddler bed that day.

From there on it got worse, there wasn't an obstacle she couldn't clamber over. The hatch incident was just one incident. She was also very determined and headstrong and like your DD completely fearless.
In the end she took a fall from the sofa when she was about 20 months. She'd been half watching F1 on the TV, Schumacher was on the podium and did his trademark jump, she copied it and fell headlong off the sofa.
She landed on the inch of stone fireplace that didn't have pipe lagging protecting it and split her cheek down to the bone.
We sat in A&E, desperately worried whilst she carried on climbing up the play equipment in the waiting room

She's 16 now. Still headstrong, still fearless, but she did survive in one piece somehow.

Ornaments are fine - 'no'will suffice if said with conviction . Small older kids toys like lego are different , too bloody risky . This requires a 'no' and then a careful touch and then 'give it back to mummy - dangerous '.
Older siblings toys are a huge choking hazard - not worth the risk . The shove it in the mouth phase doesn't last though and if you teach them to be wary this is safer than removing . Removing just tantalises them!

miaow we should get your DD1 and my DS together, they'd take over the bloody world.

We have one of those bouncing zebra toys, gift from family. Caught DS aged about 18/20 months, stood on it, bouncing up and down, trying to reach the handle on the conservatory door. He uses his toy broom (handle end) to hook things off the top shelves (where they have been moved because at two he is still in the put-everything-in-my-mouth phase). He can now open the stairgate on his bedroom door, and the other day I caught him with the magnetic key for the cupboard locks in the kitchen, gleefully trying to open them. A stern no has precisely no effect. He is quite good if I move him away from things, but it's like a compulsion: He just wants to play with plugs and wires and keys and anything else dangerous he can find. I've been telling him no, moving him, talking about why we don't play with x, y and z for 18 months. And he knows he shouldn't play with plugs etc but... he's two and he has zero impulse control and when he wants something, he will go and get it, even if it involves risking his neck.

I have DTs and based on that would say it's personality.

In some ways I was an earth mother type who insisted on all-organic home-made foods, didn't allow any TV until they were 2 years old, etc.

I was also a single parent pretty much from their birth on, so DC had to get used to not having my undivided attention or supervision. I have practised a healthy level of neglect.

In order to save my sanity my house was child-proofed. I didn't go mad. I only had one cupboard lock for the cupboard containing dangerous items such as bleach, etc. I didn't bother with socket covers or corner protectors. But I had all my books (my pride and joy) put on shelves all around the room at picture-rail height and ensured that anything else left within reach was safe for them to play with and wouldn't matter too much to me if they broke it. As I am not really an ornament or knick-knack type person anyway, this didn't change too much. The only thing I really had to do which was quite extreme was buy a second fireguard to put on top of the first one because toddling twins would attempt to climb on top of just the one fireguard and could use each other for a bunk up. I also purchased a large, old-fashioned wooden playpen so that if I wanted a shower I could go for one knowing they were perfectly safe.

Ultimately, it's about making life easier for you/DC balanced against your parenting ethos. My children are certainly not children who are unused to being told no, but why create battles where none need exist?