Toddler Vs Christmas Tree

[MinisterforCheekyFuckery]

Genuine question: how the hell am I supposed to stop a crawling and (as of this week) occasionally Bambi-style toddling when he can be arsed DS from grabbing and pulling a 7ft Christmas tree down on himself??

We can't just not have one, 5yo DD would never forgive us. But the thought of spending weeks being worried about taking my eyes off DS for a second because he's constantly trying to chew the Christmas lights or throw all my lovely, very breakable Christmas baubles at the TV is a tad stressful to say the least.

With DD it wasn't an issue- if she touched something she shouldn't we only had to look at her and say "no" firmly once and she'd never go near it again. She's just that sort of kid. DS is a whole other story! We've had to baby-proof the entire fecking house because he's into everything, all the time. But how does one baby-proof or toddler proof a Christmas tree??

Help me oh wise ones!

We used to put the tree in a play pen. And tie it to the wall.

My daughter did the same.

Put only soft/non breakable decs within reach! Or get him his own tiny tree with a couple of cheap baubles - might distract him from the real one?!

For the year when DS was an 18m old wrecking ball, the tree went on the dining table.

We had planned to do the playpen thing with DS2.

Then it turned out he was massively disapproving and mistrustful of the concept of an Inside Tree and gave it a very wide berth. Never went near it once, it was amazing.

They sell fences to go around your tree (we had one that looked like a picket fence when DB was little 🙈😂)

It worked very well the first year (he was about 14 months) and the following year but the third year he was more boisterous and tried to jump the fence in search or the Cadbury chocolate baubles 😬 he fell and bit straight through his tongue. (In my opinion by that stage he was old enough to have known better anyway).

Small tree on a sturdy table or one year when my twins were two i took it down on Boxing Day after they wouldn't stop jumping off the arm of the sofa into it 😳

We have cats and a toddler

We chain ours (tree, not toddler, though sometimes I think it'd be easier) to the wall - you can't see the chain when it's done and the rest of the year it just looks like an unobtrusive bracket on the wall - about 3cm square.

Good baubles go towards the top and cheapy ones nearer the bottom, looks a little lopsided but generally ok, and then the only problem is rewinding the silver chains once a day (both cats and toddler pull at those).

half tree

Ooh, I think my link worked!
I wondered what these were for. Now I know, toddlers!!

Thank you all.
Not sure the half tree would work as I think DS would just see it as something of a challenge to shake the trunk repeatedly until the baubles fall off
We do have a play pen so that might be an option but I'm not convinced the tree will fit in it.
Will look into a fence for around the tree, have just had a quick look on Amazon but they mostly seem to be for decorative purposes and DS would scale them with ease. We might need a electric fence instead. Only joking!...mostly.

Put a play pen round it?

We had it in a room where the door could be shut so little ones weren't alone in a room with the tree.saying that . DS1 did pull a tree onto himself whilst reaching for baubles when he was a baby and we had an open plan flat; no harm done he just got trapped under a mass of pine needly branches !

Don't have a tree?

Don't have a tree?

I did consider that but doesn't seem fair on 5yo DD who really loves Christmas trees. I don't want her to resent her brother for it. Her birthday is at the beginning of December and it's become a bit of a tradition that we put the tree up the day before her birthday which she gets very excited about.

I agree that not having a tree seems unfair. You can get trees that are flat and wall mounted?
You could also get a prelim, artificial tree and buy a box of shatterproof baubles from Homebase or similar. He can’t pull lights off that way and the baubles are pretty sturdy.

Put a play pen round it?

Our play pen isn't adjustable unfortunately so the tree would have to go in it and I don't think it'll fit. But I will have a look at adjustable play pens to put round the existing tree, or may be cheaper to get a smaller tree to go in the play pen. What a faff!

Oh god I'm in the same boat and hadn't given it much thought until now.

2.5 year old dd is very good and was such a dream last year, told her no when she wanted to touch it and she behaved very well.
14 month old newly walking ds is a bit like your ds, absolutely into everything and a little bugger!

Oh god I'm panicking now at the thought of the tree being over every day

This could work

Echoing the playpen idea!

We got an adjustable wooden one from eBay for a reasonable price.

Rabbit/puppy pen. It's what I use for my kids and my rabbits

We only put unbreakable decorations on the tree and let him maul it if he wanted to. He got bored of touching it far quicker than the bloody cat did.

I duck tape my tree to the floor, then cover base with one of those basket skirt things. The most precious bauble are high up still, but I secure them all on with garden wire so can't be pulled off. No breakages in 8 years of cats and a 14 month DD last year.

Get a playpen for the tree or purchase a smaller one for this year and put it on a high surface?

We put all our decorations at the top. You could get a train round the tree...that way spend most of his time dismantling the train track..