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.

Don't any of you have a stair gate just so you can pen DC into their room?

Until 2 weeks ago we lived in a flat but always had a stair gate, initially over the kitchen but when DD moved into a bed over her room so that she couldn't just wake up in the night and roam around the flat. Now we still have it on her room, but when DC2 comes along we may progress to having it just at the top of the stairs. Would be loath to remove it altogether as DD hasn't grown up with stairs in a house so fear she might forget in the night.

V little other child proofing, elastic bands round some of the cupboard door handles, might thing about getting a lock for the cleaning cupboard but never needed one for DD.

My new fear is DD chucking herself out of the window. Our new house is v hot so windows open all the time. Need to see about getting child locks on them. In our old house we had sash windows so could just open the top.

I have had to put locks on our windows bumperlicious.

maths I don't know what to say

We find that the stairgate at the top is very useful for older children, too. Firstly it slows down sleepwalkers - they can open it in their sleep, but we hear it and can go and retrieve them. Secondly it serves as an indication to dc who can't yet read a clock as to whether they are allowed up yet: the rule in our house is stairgate closed = play quietly in your room, stairgate open = you can go downstairs.

"because of the age they are rather than because they have a particular character"

Absolutely, Just13. I've yet to meet a child that has never, once in a blue moon, behaved in a way that could be described as out of character. They are impulsive, inquisitive creatures - to varying degrees perhaps but any mobile child is prone to doing daft/inventive/downright dangerous things. Added to that, small children simply do not have the capacity to understand risks and consequences to a sufficient degree - which is one reason we don't let 3 yos loose near roads.

I had the whole stairgate chat with another Mum yesterday. I have not used stairgates with ds1 or my twins (despite some quiet protests from Mum ). Anyway, they are great on stairs - always have been. Her ds2 is a couple of months younger than mine and she was regretting having her stairgates as she now can't trust him on stairs and has to watch him like a hawk.

I am probably at the lax end of the scale. We have no cupboard locks and especially not those things you put on the corners of tables!!! But I do use socket covers and secure any furniture to the wall that may fall on them if they climb up it.

So to sum up...broken glass not a good idea. Bare wires... it depends where they are (not in the bathroom I hope) - if well out of reach and nowhere flammable, I wouldn't have a prob with it. Stairgates, don't bother. Teach them. They learn quickly.

Most of all...let them explore and learn. Yes, they may get a bump here or there, but as long as it's not actually life threatening stuff (be very honest with yourself about what life threatening is), I would not worry.

(Oh yes, we do have a stairgate on the twins' room!) to keep them in at times - usually when changing nappy and they are constantly running off.

of course you can sort out dangly wires and broken glass pane yourself!
get some tools/materials and do it...
ask H to hold the baby/take her to park while you sort it out

my exP gave my dd bleach to drink - they were visiting in his country (in europe) and apaprently they put bleach/cleaning product stuff in bottles that look like water bottles and it was a clear bleachey product?

it was night time - she'd asked for water - she vomited....he took her to hosp (having called friend to babysit other dd who slept on blissfully unaware..)

i only found out later when the hosp sent thru letter requesting copy of european health card thing for their records..

We never had stairgates upstairs but did downstairs to stop them going up without us realising. Had some sockets covered but that was it. I feel that children will visit houses where doors slam, drawers open and close, stairs are steep etc and they need to learn that. Ours learnt not to touch the oven etc. Dangling wires and broken glass is just bad news for anyone but total childproofing ends up making the child less able to negotiate hazards I think.

That said, the small amount we did do was my thinking not DH's, who would have left it all as it was.

PS We are both paranoid about water - DD1 nearly drowned on holiday - exactly the sort of 'out of character' investigation of the water people mention. Since then water is a big deal. So they are all having excellent swimming lessons and never left alone in the bath. Stil have no mat though because sliding (supervised) is fun.

I have the following:

Gate at kitchen entrance;
Door stoppers
Plug socket covers
Cupboard latches in bedroom and bathroom
toilet seat lock
I gave up with the table corners because she just pulls them off.
and all wires etc are tucked far away

I say if you want to let her be truly free in your home then take all the precautions. I'm often busy in the kitchen and can't keep my eye on my DD all the time, but I'm happy to let her play freely because I know my home is toddler safe. Therefore, I don't have to be there behind her all the time saying, no, don't touch, no don't go there, no, no, no!

Tell that man of yours to stop being lazy and get on with it!

my twin boys illustrate why some children need these things and some not....

I now cannot open the windows in their room at night because of this, and if I didn't have a gate on ther bedroom door I would have no sleep as they would be off at all hours. I have to double lock the front door as they can open that now, and I have gates on the kitchen door, and both ends of the stairs. Even my 4 year old can't be trusted with his window as my neighbour had to come round the other night to tell me was hanging out of it.... Sometimes I wish we were still in a tiny flat (but n ot that often ).

Two points really: one: kids are as different as grown ups and I have a friend who's kids would never do any of this stuff (or try and pour water in the sockets ) an doesn't need this stuff, and two: I don't think stair gates at the top of the stairs are good when there are older kids as the consequences of climbing over the gate and fallng are worse..

"because of the age they are rather than because they have a particular character"

Disagree strongly with this. DD simply wouldn't do anything she'd been told was dangerous, from a really young age. She's just a cautious kind of child. She understood the concept of danger from quite young and stuck to what I'd told her. She also applied it to things that I might have liked her to try and which I didn't actually think were particularly dangerous. I distinctly remember her at 18 months, standing at the top of a tiny flight of stairs (only two steps) and saying 'No, Mummy, TOO DANGEROUS'. She also told her dad off pretty fiercely at 14 months old because he'd opened a cupboard that I'd told her only I was allowed to open (the one under the sink with all the cleaning stuff in it). She STILL won't climb stuff in playgrounds at nearly four that I see kids half her age happily clambering on. Some children just don't have that kind of disposition. It's unusual, possibly, but not abnormal. Apparently I was just the same.

I honestly don't think it's the age, it's the child. We never had stairgates or cupboard locks or any of that stuff with DD. She was a very active and curious child, but knew specifically what she was not allowed to touch and was very good about following those rules.

DS2 (almost 4), on the other hand, is constantly on the go and absolutely needs the stairgates in place. He has no problems navigating the stairs, however, if he was to be let loose on the house when he woke up in the morning (at 5am and sometimes even 4am), it would be horrific, and I would be concerned for his safety. And in order to remain sane, I do need SOME sleep. If I have to worry that he will wake up at 4am (or god help me, even earlier - which he has sometimes done!) and get into things, I would never be able to sleep. So there is a gate on his bedroom door, at the bottom of the stairs (to keep him from running upstairs during the day when our 11mo old DS is napping and waking him up repeatedly), and on the kitchen door (so that I can can cook things in the oven and slow cooker without worrying he will reach them). We are slowly giving him more and more freedom, rather than turning him loose. He seems to respond well to this. But the gates have to stay attached as DS3 is now reaching the stage where he is crawling and will soon be walking.

Thanks to those who have drawn attention to the FatallyFlawed website, I would specially like to draw attention to the latest fact sheets that have been published, you can get them here.

The latest tests show that there are NO socket covers made for British sockets which are the correct size to be inserted into a socket. That means that whenever you plug in a socket cover you are misusing the socket, and that can cause permanent and dangerous damage to the socket.

Wrt disposition -- DD2 was the most easygoing little girl ever created, would say "hot" when she went near the oven and "no, no" when her little sister tried climbing the bookshelves, but she was the one who quietly let herself out of the house by unlocking the front door one day when I was putting DD3 down for a nap, and trotted off to the playground all by herself (which necessitated crossing the street at an intersection and finding her way through the park) resulting in me going berserk looking all over the house, banging on the boots of parked cars, knocking on all the neighbours' doors and screaming her name at the top of my lungs up and down the street. I finally called the police, who combed the area and re-searched the house (they even looked in the washing machine and dryer) and eventually found her because she had climbed to the top of the highest climbing thingy in the playground to see if she could spot DD1 and DS walking home from school. It's the quiet ones who will surprise you every time, ime.

We lived in a well child proofed flat when the children were small, and it mean that we could be very relaxed parents despite the fact that ds was a very early mover and very independent and inquisitive with it (and "no" was no barrier). When dd came along 16 mths later we didn't have to make any changes, which was nice. We had a gate on the kitchen and on their room (although that one came down fairly early) because we are a family that don't close doors. Otherwise I think we did the sockets and the cupboard under the sink, and I think we had a few slam door things too. Mostly we just went around the house at toddler height and moved things that were likely to get broken. This wasn't particularly for their safety, more for our piece of mind.

I noticed that compared to the children of friends our two were always more adventurous, and I suspect that is partly because we didn't hover over them. For example with ds all the other babies would be sitting around at their mum's feet, whilst he would have commando crawled off to find more interesting things. At home I could just keep an ear out for him, so I didn't have to chase him around, and that was how I preferred to live. So I think it depends on both the nature of the child and the parents.

On the scary side my cousin fell down the stairs at about 18mths and had a very bad fracture, whilst an aunt had her nightgown catch fire on an electric fire and very very bad burns. Young children are more likely to be injured at home than anywhere else (although of course they do spend a lot of time at home) so sensible precautions probably are worthwhile.

Why have I not heard of www.fatallyflawed.org before?? This is a shock!

The only time we've had to do anything with our sockets was when the one lone open/unused socket in the living room seemed to fascinate DS2. We purchased a socket cover that snaps down and locks over the entire socket, not just the plug, so it's completely encased and cannot be reached at all. In the last year, however, we moved the furniture around in the living room to make better use of the space, and that socket is covered anyway, so no need to have the cover on it anymore. We don't use socket plugs, for the reasons on websites listed above.