Baby-proofing - how to do it whilst keeping it stylish

[mimosaic]

DD is showing signs of crawling, and in the next few months will be cruising and doing all sorts.

Our house is not at all ready for this... we will definitely get stair gates, and move obviously dangerous items to grown-up rooms, but my question is, how do you keep your rooms stylish whilst making them safe for babies?

Things like delicate table lamps on coffee tables with spindly legs, all your plants, tall floor lamps - do these just all get moved to a different room or is there something that can be done?

Just move them to a different room, and be prepared to reassess what's safe when your baby starts to pull up to standing and furniture cruise. And then again when they start to climb...

Apart from stair gates we haven't baby proofed at all.

Haven't bothered with cupboard locks or moving anything apart from a kindling bucket that was near the fireplace. We just made a huge effort to teach him that certain things hes either not allowed to touch or to be careful around.

Its worked so far, no damage done, but ds1 is quite chilled out. His brother is absolutely not so I may reply differently in a couple of months time when he's mobile!

Just get rid of it all and have a minimalist look.

We are already quite minimalist I think! But what will our light source be without lamps? 🤔 and I can't bear to part with my plants. Maybe a special stair gate for the plant corner...

You can get stair gate type sections that are like half a hexagon to do that sort of thing. We used similar to fence off the dangerous part of our kitchen, in a fairly open plan downstairs.

We bought a 6 sided play pen that can be used joined together or as a room divider with it secured to the wall. Firstly we used it as a pen to put DS in, but as he has gotten older we have changed things around. We now have 2 sides and the gate as a fireplace guard, and 2 other sides block a side table that has plug sockets underneath it and a tall floor lamp behind it.

I love the hexagon stair gates! What a great idea, I'll look into this. Thank you.

You don't need to move much. Just say no when they get too near something they shouldn't. I never moved floor lamps, plants, anything. Just covered the plugs and had a stair gate at the top of the stairs.

DD is 18 months. We have got stair gates, and the invisible cupboard locks in a couple of key places the booze cabinet but otherwise just tried to give her firm boundaries.

If she's really interested in something in particular we show her and, if safe to do so, let her touch it in a controlled way, which usually satisfies her curiosity. She has tested us a couple of times, but generally knows what to be gentle with and what to stay totally clear of.

It means we can take her to other people's houses without too much worry of her wrecking the place.

I imagine like all the parenting victories we try to claim it's a temperament thing.

We have a kitchen full of cupboards and a very curious, determined little boy. We used the magnet invisible locks on the cupboard doors. All of them apart from one full of plastics. Because it’s less stressful that way. I can redirect and say no but he’s 10 months old sooo mileage is limited. A firm no means nothing against the lure of cables/ cupboards/ things that will fall on his head. The other thing I’ve found helpful is the dlink cable storage tidies for extension cords. Lamps are just not an option for us. I have a daylight alarm clock (don’t need it now I have a human one) and he is obsessed with it. We had a set of folding bamboo shelves with some sentimental items: couple bits of valuable crockery. That’s all gone into the loft.

The other thing I’m considering is a mesh stair gate that retracts completely when not in use. You do have to screw it into the wall but less obtrusive BabyDan Guard Me Auto Retractable Safety Guard www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DNK23Y0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_sEl6Bb8837A9A?tag=mumsnetforum-21

This thread is giving me hollow laughter. You don’t have to move much. HA. :D it does depend on the child. We have a couple of plants that survive out of reach. Some nice high shelving perhaps?

I didn't baby proof at all, he has never touched plants or flowers, he just likes to go for a sniff. Floor lamps that we have aren't interesting though at almost two he likes to switch them on. He has spent over a year constantly in the under unit fridge and washing machine. I still have to check everytime that there is not weird stuff in there. The only thing that he touched that annoyed me was the radiator knob which I couldn't have really moved any way.

It probably is a bit of a temperament thing as a PP said. DD has so far shown a tendency to be stubborn and curious, so I'm fearing the worst.

I had some friends come round recently with toddlers, and they grabbed EVERYTHING. Dust bins were tipped over, plants molested, and this struck the fear of god in me.

@mimosaic sounds like ours ;) we work on the rule of, if it can be grabbed, it will be grabbed. So you just figure out what you are ok with being grabbed, what’s not safe to be grabbed. I am still being amused and a bit jealous of everyone who says they just tell their kid not to touch . I mean I could do that but it’s so stressful trying to keep him away from things he desperately wants, I’d rather just not have / have them inaccessible. He’s an early walker so unfortunately we’ve had to do all this sooner rather than later. The house still looks like we live in it, just there’s some baby additions...