Protecting the tree from baby

[InDreamland]

Hello lovely MN peeps

I'm thinking ahead to when I put my tree and decs up 1st weekend of December and wondering how on earth I'm going to protect it from my 9 month old DD. She's pulling herself up on everything and grabbing anything she can get her hands on (I've had to move a lot out of her reach). I just know she'll try to pull all the decs off the tree and possibly even pull the tree over - we have a 6ft artificial one.

So the question is, how on earth do I avoid the tree being attacked? At the moment the only thing I can think of is to put it in her baby jail and she basically can't use it for a month but obviously we need it to put her somewhere safe when we need to leave her unattended for 5 mins. I looked at those nice white fences sold online to go around a tree but I've read they're more for decorative purposes and won't stop a determined baby getting to the tree.

@Effsee I might do that. I'll be so pleased if she's not really interested.

We just kept DS away from it. The first year he was rolling but not pulling up, so we could direct him away from it. We didn't use to leave him unattended in the room - if we left, he came too.

The second year he was about 20 months, and old enough to know he could touch gently, with permission, which he did. Also bought unbreakable ornaments that year (wood, metal, plastic). He had his own decorations (mini light-up plastic christmas trees, little reindeer, etc) to play with instead.

We made a barrier of fake presents when the DC were little. Just wrapped cardboard boxes with something in them to gve them weight so they couldn't be moved. A lot of them were copier paper boxes with the paper still inside.

They eventually got reused as gift boxes when they were no longer needed. I think I might even have used them to hide the real presents one year.

We had ours in a playpen!

My daughter and her friend had babies a few months betwoon, at the start of Christmas both their trees were fully decorated, about a week later the bottom of the tree was hard where they'd moved move the decorations out of reach. We never really had any problems with our 3, cats (apart from one who liked to drink the tree water) or grandchildren. I think the fact that it's a real tree helps as they are a bit prickly.

My tree is only decorated at the top quarter now. There was no saving the bottom 3/4s from my 1 year old.

DS was 11 months when the tree was put up for the first time. We got two dining room chairs, laid them down with the seats tucked under the tree and covered them up with an lld cardboard box wrapped in pretty paper. Also move anything breakable or precious to the higher branches. Thankfully he never bothered much with the tree. May be a different story this year as he’s now nearly two!

I had a smaller tree and put it on the side board!

Put it on a table.

I'd also go through your decorations and check for choking hazards/breakables. I got shot of loads of cheap baubles because the hanging bits came off really easily, leaving a little choke-sized bauble.

I also bought a cheap felt tree with velcro decorations that DD could decorate for herself, which helped distract her. You could get a tiny fake tree and let DC go wild with tinsel and unbreakable baubles!

Mine was never bothered by it but i bought a very small fibre optic one for her to 'play with' plus i also bought a felt one for her
amazon.co.uk/HusDow-Christmas-Ornaments-Family-Toddlers/dp/B072DSLCK4/ref=sr_1_4_sspa?crid=24P7927L8YRXQ&dchild=1&keywords=felt+christmas+tree+for+kids&qid=1606146914&sprefix=felt+christ%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-4-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzVkJBVVk1SjY3QVJPJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODIzNzg5MVBBNFNBNVpNNEVRViZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNDY0NzMwR1g4MDFHMlBMNTBaJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==]]

We just had a small tree up a height when mine were that age. Didn't want them to risk pulling something heavy and and spiky on top of themselves

There are two types of people in this world, those who protect the baby from the danger that is the tree... and those that protect the tree from the danger that is the baby 😂😂😂😂

You might be surprised. Neither of my two have really cared about the appearance of the Christmas tree. Littlest is 20 months and apart from carefully removing the odd bauble to show me now and again hasn't touched

Tethered it to the wall at the top to stop it falling over. Otherwise just left it (and with all the wrapped gifts under it too) none of the dcs, dogs or cats over many years did anything more than rearrange the baubles, pull them off the bottom branches, sneak the occasional tree chocolate and eat it (foil and all), or climb it and make all the needles drop off early. I’ll leave you to decide whether it was dcs, dogs or cats that did each but no real issues.

@DemolitionBarbie good point about choking hazards and breakables. I'll have to double check all our decorations. Thank you for the reminder.

@Sweetmotherofallthatisholyabov OMG I'm so embarrassed that I'm the latter 😳 but she really does destroy everything she can get her hands on at the moment.

I'm 100% the latter too

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Mine def isn’t going to just get used to it and not touch. He’s 7 months, but crawling and pulling himself up, and obviously doesn’t understand ‘no’ yet.

He’s been trying to climb out the cat flap the last 2 weeks! I have removed him about 50 times per day, and distracted him with other things, but he still returns 10 mins later.
I’m not sure I have the energy to move him away from the tree as well every 10 mins for 2-3 weeks.

I think small one up high and larger in the hallway is the way to go here

@Caspianberg I now have visions of DD climbing out of a cat flap that we don't have 🤣 it is exhausting isn't it constantly running after a LO. I think I've so far managed to put things out of reach but the tree is the challenge. I could put our smaller 3ft one up instead higher up so out of reach but I love our 6ft one. I always have a nativity set out too but I'll need to find an alternative location for that too.

Seriously considering a few large boxes wrapped and used as a barricade like @orangenasturtium done. Just need to hope DD doesn't rip it all as she has a thing about paper too 🤦🏻‍♀️