baby proofing

[tinky19]

My 7 mo has a fasination for all things electrical at the mo. Any suggestions? Also, as he's not far off crawling we're looking at locks/ gates/ pens etc. Any suggestions on the best cupboard and drawer locks. Also, if you live in a small house is it practical to have a play pen?
Any advice gratefully recieved.

We used cable ties to tie up cupboard doors. They are cheap, don't need to be permanently attached, and challenge most Houdini-types.

Otherwise, you just have to move all the breakable stuff out the way, and leave lots of plastic stuff, toys, and magazines within reach.

Playpens are only useful if you have a baby who enjoys being in one. Many don't! If you just need to keep baby safe while you go to the loo or cook, you could use a cot, travel cot, or a high chair where they can sit and watch what you're doing.

We used gates to split out part of downstairs as a play area for DD when she was little. She was kept away from the front door, the stairs, the dining room (too much glass) and the kitchen, but had the run of the rest. And she could sit just outside the kitchen door while I was cooking. We used something like this to block downstairs doorways, and had one of these on the stairs themselves.

We used these cupboard locks, which were fine although one or two of them did break after a year or so. We had friends that had the magnetic ones but we never managed to get them fitted. Those are great as it doesn't matter how much they fiddle, if they don't have the magnetic release they can't get in.

We've got some cupboard locks but also make extensive use of duct tape. This is on cupboards we don't use so much - easy for us to get off but not so easy for DD (15 mo). In fact, she doesn't show any interest in those cupboards anymore. Just applied it to the washing machine too. It has a child lock so she can't change the cycle, but child lock doesn't work on the power button so it has a piece of card duct-taped over it.

Playpen is now a ball pool. Was useful for about 3 weeks while she was learning to pull to standing. She was so busy using the bars for that that she didn't realise she was penned in.

If you use stairgates - remember to close them. DH didn't this morning and I'm so used to DD pottering around that I didn't know until I heard tumbling and 'wah'. Felt terrible, but she's fine. Won't happen again.