AIBU to think some degree of childproofing is absolutely necessary?

[giggitygiggity]

DH is driving me crazy, every time I suggest that we need to fit stairgates, fireguards, secure the loose dangly electrical wires, remove the door with broken glass pane exactly at toddling height etc etc I am met with a massive whinge about how he "doesnt want the whole house to look like a giant playpen".

Before DD I would just have got on and done these things myself, but there is just no way I have the time now (or necessary DIY ability )

So AIBU to think that these are just the things that go with having a child - the house looks like (horror) a child actually lives there? It's like he sees making the house basically safe as some kind of failure which means that DD will grow up wrapped in cotton wool and never be able to cope with anything at all.

It's all a matter of degree isn't it? Someone I know still has a stairgate on their child's bedroom and locks on all the kitchen cupboards and their child is 4 (NT)

We have a stairgate at the top of the stairs as my DD2 is a 13mo runner and I can't do bath and bed on my own without it. The rest of it is about watching them really - I'm a great believer that safety measures can be more dangerous as they can make you falsely secure, nothing is safer than you actually keeping an eye on them. Also once you've got 2, you can't expect the older one (if they're young too, and I mean under 7 or 8) to remember to replace e.g. stairgates.

Having said that I am obsessive about keeping long stringy things (blind cords, ribbons on balloons etc) out of children's way as the 2yo niece of a good friend strangled herself with a blind cord .

You must know me then Ladybiscuit. Locks on the kitchen cupboards because it would be very time consuming to take them off and we are used to them, stairgate on DC3's room for the same reason (plus if we are running v late for school and he is insisting in applying my makeup/spreading suncream on the mirrors/dissecting a woodlice I can stick him the other side of it!).

I think it is very easy for toddlers to have an accident and when you have more than one child, it is very difficult to always watch them both at the same time. Knowing things are relatively safe just makes things more relaxed.

Having said that, I know of a child (friend of friend type situation) who hung on a curtain pull (can't remember what they are called) and another terrible 3 yr old tragedy in my father's family.

DS2 is baby proofing the house all by himself, by breaking everything.

has a short cry about lovely metronome, now deceased.

I have a stairgate on the kitchen because I got bored of finding toys in the fridge and eggs and salad in the toy box. One on the top of the stairs to stop sneaky morning escapes. That's all. Plug covers are scary, and we have no fire.

Thank you IsThatTheTime - that's the word I was looking for 'blind cord'. There you go then - two posts and two deaths on blind chords. It's surely common sense and our responsibility as parents.

Do think childproofing depends on the child and they do try and sell you a lot of stuff you don't need. With DS1 we just had stairgates top & bottom which were removed once he was about 2.5 and socket covers which we didn't really need as he never went near them.

DS2 is a different story altogether, if he can get into/onto something or generally cause mayhem he will. Have had to get a gate for the kitchen as I would never get anything cooked with him/both in the kitchen plus door slammers(?) to stop them both banging doors shut and chopping off fingers. Have to ensure top opening windows are not open or locked slightly open as ds2 can climb up onto window ledge and swing off the frame in the time it takes me to go to the loo - only a matter of time before he can swing his legs up and hang out of the window I'm sure - hence locking!

Oh and have now invested in fridge & freezer locks which always thought were pointless before. When ds2 does come in kitchen he delights in swinging the doors open - not good for my freezer in the heat we've been having!

OP I think you should stop fannying around and brooding and just call in a handyman tommorow. House gets fixed and you wont feel so upset and worried about it all

op, i didnt get a stairgate, despite living in a townhouse, until ds broke his arm falling downstairs and healthvisitor arranged for me to have them.
after that, anything i suggested, happened fairly quickly.

have done basically no childproofing, not even covers over plugs. DD is generally good at talking and listening and is mostly good about leaving things that might be dangerous. only thing I've done is put elastic bands around the doors of some double cupboards which are at her height as they contain lots of glass bottles. She does occasionally drag out the mr muscle bottle but I'm quite vigilant about that cupboard now. I cannot stand stair gates so she has learnt to climb stairs and go down them backwards very well. I think it depends on whether yr kid listens to you. But am very nervy about string type things so would get wire and glass sorted without consulting OH.

Am sure I am going to get a naughty curious little boy next time round, if there is one!!!

when ds1 was about 6 months old and beginning to move I went out and bought all the 'necessary' childproofing stuff - 3 stairgates, cupboard locks, loo seat locks, socket covers, corner cushions, door jam things etc. These things moved house with us twice, and 3 dc later I have just given a whole load of stuff away because I never even managed to get it out of the packaging.

In my defence, all chemically things are kept high up in the utility room which has a really stiff door knob, I shut the kitchen door if I'm not in there and we don't use the open fires. I did remove all locks from the bathroom doors though after ds2 got stuck in the loo once when he was about a year old.

undercovamutha Wed 07-Jul-10 18:13:44
"My DH fell down the stairs aged 12mo and broke his leg. So it doesn't necessarily follow that we were all fine not having child-proofing when we were younger."

My dd otoh knocked her teeth out stumbling against the stairgate. Can't win.

Children are 3 and 4 and we still have stairgate at the top of the stairs for night time, as one of them is sleepwalking!!!! We didn't go overboard with childproofing but did use cusion corners on the marble fireplace as it really sticks out of the floor and is in the room where they play all the time.

The thing that always amazes me is how different DCs are. When we have a child round to play they always go for different things than my DC - as our childproofing has been mostly reactive! And then when we go to other people's houses my DS goes for something that they wouldn't have spotted as a danger.

That said we have those external cupboard locks on two kitchen cupboard - one with the cleaning stuff in it and the other with the booze in it...that would be embarressing at A&E...

Much of the child proofing we did was not so much about safety as about how much of a pain in the arse my kids were. They both walked at

BlueberryPancake, sympathies, I have sleepwalking children and a sleepwalking husband. People often ask why we still have stairgates (the youngest is now four years old) but I am often woken by one or other of them bouncing off the stairgate. It doesn't usually wake them though.

Thinking about it though, if they follow their father's example, we will still need the stairgate forty years from now!

i've never had a stairgate,or much safety proofing at all,but we did change all the glass in doors to safety glass,and we have a mains smoke alarm.Can't think of anything else,apart from socket covers on the ones at bed level and near the floor.

I agree about blind cords - bloody terrifying things. Mine are tied in a big knot far out of reach.

But I do think children need to learn that they can't do stuff. Yes it's tiresome saying 'no' all the time to small children but eventually they do listen. Otherwise how do you manage when they get older? Start young I reckon

If you really want to be sure your house is childproof (or want your DH to be shown what safe is/isn't), I will rent my two kids, both with ASD, one also with ADHD and at 6, a budding engineer.

I charge very competitive rates (plus insurance, which may actually cost you).

Seriously, though, get yourself on your hands and knees and go through the mind of a toddler with all the what ifs. If you can't be even a little comfortable with something, then fix it (even if it means totally ripping out that broken glass and leaving a hole). If DH won't fix the electrics, shell out £20 on a DIY manual and learn how to blank off those wires. Alternately, isolate that circuit until DH fixes it or agrees to let you pay someone to fix it. Those things aren't negotiable. As far as stairgates etc go, YMMV and depend on the children and what's behind the gates.

DD1 drank bleach that she found in the cupboard under the sink -- cleaning stuff thereafter kept high out of reach.

DS electrocuted himself once by putting a tiny bit of metal in an outlet. He got a blackened burn mark on his arm and the wall had one too. He told me flames shot out of the wall -- outlets thereafter covered.

DD4 fell down the stairs twice in the same day (no stair guard) and we spent 6 hours in emergency getting her x-rayed -- gate installed.

We were lucky nobody had any serious or lasting effects from any of the above. Pure lucky.

If you want something done, do it yourself, OP. Women are just as capable of wielding a screwdriver as men are, or fixing a window, or whatever needs doing. Stop asking him to get it done and roll up your sleeves.

mathanxiety - you have kamikaze children Didn't your bleach have a childproof cap?

As I said earlier, luckily DS's limited diet means he's disinclined to eat anything that he hasn't eaten a million times before so your DD is clearly a more adventurous sort

The common-sense approach is to listen to the experience of parents who've raised real children in real houses and who can reel off a list of things babies/toddlers might do, just because of the age they are rather than because they have a particular character. It is your duty to keep little ones safe until they can understand household dangers and to not accept this is negligent.

math - remind us - are you in the UK? OR were you when your DS stuck stuff in the socket? Because the UK has a peculiar safety system inbuilt into the sockets that no other system has, I believe.

DS was a toddler in the US when he nearly killed himself. US outlets are lethal.

DD1 defeated every childproof cap ever made. She read at an early age.

(And exH taught DD4 to follow directions and open medicine containers)

at your ex, math!!