Ingenious ideas for Christmas trees and cruising babies

[BendingSpoons]

DS is 9 months. He is cruising and quite likely to be walking by twelfth night. I don't wnt want to spend weeks guarding the Christmas tree from being used as a standing frame. Any ideas? I have thought of:

• Standing the tree on something but I think it would only work if big and high e.g. dining table or it would be at risk of getting pulled off
• Using a play pen/ball pool etc round it but we don't have one. Problem is this would also take up more space
• Putting the tree up, making sure it can't topple over (tied to something? Weighted down?) and not decorating the bottom

What have others done?

Nothing other than make sure the breakable/precious decorations were out of reach. Both kids have always been fine with the occasional “no touching”.

Once we used two sides of a square playpen (like a V shape). Almost like a fire guard. This was for nephew. Didn't take up any extra space really. Actually, you could buy a fire guard thing - probably cheaper than a playpen.

Thought I'd do same with my child but actually she wasn't interested. I think it helped that we didn't make a fuss of it, just distracted/diverted her from it if she looked like she was getting close or intrigued. She then ignored it mostly.

We always just put unbreakable decorations at the bottom and let them get on with it none of my four really meddled with the tree that much, pulled a few bits off and messed with the thing to change the lights to flashing but that was it.
Even DC3 who was generally a nightmare!!
The only one to pull it over was DN who's DP put their tree behind a playpen.

My first was 6m for her first Christmas and wasn’t really moving. She was been pretty good since then. We always put non breakable things down low. I think she’ll be more of a pain now she’s a bit bigger as she’ll want to help decorate with the fragile ones and she’s already broken one (on the way back from the shop). I think my second will be just starting to crawl as we put the tree up this year as she’s really close. I’m a bit nervous as she’ll be a complete liability. 8m to 15m is probably the peak age for tree destruction risk.

BikeRunSki I have joked to DH that we should do that!

We had fake presents as barrier (like another PP) when the DC were little. I bought a lot of gift boxes/made my own when DS was born. We used them as fake gifts (with something inside to weight them down), then for the real gifts, reusing them every year. It's actually easier for little ones to open, saves a lot of money and is better for the environment. Most of them are still going strong 20 years later.