Baby-proofing advice please

[SpikeGilesSandwich]

DS is getting to the stage where we are going to have to start making the house safer, I have a box of cupboard and drawer clips that my DM bought but it looks like they need screwing on. Obviously, I care more about the safety of my DC but I wondered if there was an alternative to screwing permanent holes in all my brand new kitchen and bathroom cupboards? Also, we have some of those draws with smaller drawers inside from IKEA where the knives are and I'm not sure how I'd manage to secure them even by screwing clips on.
We have a lot of medication and medical equipment to secure upstairs too, I'm getting a bit stressed about it.

Does anybody have any advice or recommendations please?

We didn't bother with any of that. Just shut the doors to the kitchen and bathroom when not in use and put anything hazardous in the higher cupboards.

As far as possible put dangerous stuff, meds, cleaning products, glass, knives etc in higher cupboards that they can't reach.
Have one cupboard with pans, Tupperware boxes etc that you don't mind them emptying and if they show any interest in looking in cupboards let them play in that one.
I would just make sure that one cupboard could be safely locked for anything you can't store high up.

With the last family I worked for, we just used strong elastic bands around the door handles (only works with round knobs) to keep the baby out of the under sink cleaning cupboard and we were vigilant about supervising everywhere else, he was never in the kitchen alone. He was a very easy, "good" baby though, that approach might not work for a more curious child.

With regards to babyproofing, you don't need to use socket covers. Check out the fatallyflawed website for why. They actually make a socket with built in safety features more dangerous.

We put a stair gate on the sitting room door.
Made that room 'safe' (i.e. We put all our nice things high up)

It's not worth ruining furniture for quite a short period imo.

Thanks for replying Tuna, we don't have a kitchen door unfortunately, it's only a tiny kitchen. I'd like to put a stair gate in the doorway so DS could stay in the dining room but my DH thinks this is ridiculous. (We do have a playpen but I imagine he will grow out of it before the urge to open drawers and play with knives wears off)

Yes, the elastic band trick worked on the handles we have too actually

Why is a stair gate ridiculous? Far less damage.

And yes, no socket covers unless you want to increase the chance of electrocution or a fire.

My knives used to be in a mug in a higher cupboard. Cleaning, chemicals, washing products all out of reach too. Generally plastic and crockery at lower level, glass etc at higher level. You can get away with just changing a few cupboards around.

Didn't use.

In kitchen just move knifes and chemicals up high. Everything else just teach not to touch and open but if they do get in they aren't going to seriously hurt themselves

Thanks for replies, sounds like it could be a problem as we have such a tiny kitchen, there is not much option for moving things around. I still think a stair gate is a good plan, interesting how no one else thinks this is ridiculous, I might have to read some of this to DH Apparently his reasoning is that his friends with children don't have gates in their kitchen doorways so I am being silly

We had a stair gate at our kitchen door, and so did most of our friends!

Stairgate is a sensible solution. If you guys don't want to drill and fix to the door frame go for one that uses pressure to stay in situ.

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We don't have a kitchen door (or doors to our kitchen units / cupboards either for that matter) but we have a pressure fit stair gate as our kitchen is too tiny to facilitate a door - AFAIK there used to be a sliding kitchen door but that was long gone before we moved in. If it were to open the other way our dining room wouldn't be able to fit a table in. The stair gate is our only option. (Open plan living room / dining room)

Our downstairs is open plan. No door to kitchen but a door width arch, we have a stair gate. Quite common I think, not odd at all. We rent so can't be drilling holes in anything, we just shut doors when rooms aren't in use and move dangerous things out of reach.

Our kitchen is completely open plan, no door or arch, so no gate. Like i said, we just moved bleach and knifes up to plate cupboard, moved plates down. That was we knew worse case was smashed plates, not drunken chemicals. They didn't really ever attempt to get stuff out after we said no a few times, showed them it was boring stuff, and directed back to toys.

we had a stair gate on the living room door which was all child proof, so could work as a large play pen

kitchen door would seem just as good