Babyproofing the house

[MoleyMole789]

Does everyone do it? Does everyone have gates, and all kinds of devices on door knobs, wardrobes etc? Nailed in all furniture to the wall? I have a 12 month old who is walking already and so far we've managed with minimal babyproofing and just, well, supervising DS. But is this a false sense of security? Is it going to get a hell of a lot worse?

I'm looking around me and I'm finding the idea of rearranging everything really overwhelming. We keep saying we'll do XYZ but when the weekend comes around, we're too exhausted (we both work full time). Are we being irresponsible?

We do have a big play pen we can put him in, so we can go to the bathroom etc.

Nope. Only thing we did was a stair gate. Never needed anything else with our daughter. We supervised her, told her not to pull things out of cupboards. She was never that interested in seeking out things she shouldn’t.

We did stair gates and those corner protectors as they are cheap and easy to do. Also baby proofed her room since the sides may come off the cot now at any point since she is 2.5, so no wires, all her furniture is too heavy so no need to be nailed but we checked etc

We secured furniture to wall in his bedroom as I have seen heavy drawers fall on young climbing children.

and those door stoppers on top of living room and his bedroom door so he couldn’t slam fingers in repeatedly

We didn’t really have anything else. We have so many stairs and corners. Stairs outside also. So without adding loads of awkward stair gates they wouldn’t have worked well anyway so just watched him like a hawk the first year after he learnt to walk at 9month ( well from crawling age 6 ish months I guess). By 2 years he was confidently charging around house up and down stairs, and was taught to wait for us at bottom first when small.

chemicals haven’t ever been kept low her, but I would move those to higher shelf if you currently keep cleaning stuff under sink for example

We never did - but we were lucky in that once DS1 decided something wasn't interesting, he did bother again, and DS2 was only interested in food, so also easy to manage.

I tell a lie - we did put up a gate as MIL's as he was obsessed with seeing what was up the stairs (her bedroom) and she didn't have a door on her bedroom, so we had to block it off with a gate.

We've got a safety gate at the kitchen door that leads to the stairs but thats it. DD has learnt quickly what shes allowed or not allowed to touch and anything breakable is just on slightly higher shelves

Don't think it has to be too major. We did use the magnetic cupboard things but my kid was always trying to take everything out - if yours isn't interested then don't bother. We also did the rubber corners on the coffee table - really easy to fit - because he was always falling over.

I secured tall bookshelves etc., and covered plug sockets.

Not much else (we don't have stairs)

For me, it depends on your home, but you do need some spaces where you can trust them. However, this doesn't need to be the whole home. My office has never been baby proof, but he knew from the off that he wasn't allowed in their alone, and that never became an issue. Same with the kitchen and bathrooms. His room, the living room, other bedrooms/living spaces, they were all pretty safe.

We attached furniture to walls but haven't bothered with stair gates with dc2 since they seemed useless with dc1.

However, our house is on a hill so our house has lots of little mezzanine bits with 2 or 4 steps here and there rather than a long straight flight of stairs. Our kids have stumbled down occasionally and not even had a scratch/bruise. Whereas if a bookshelf fell on a toddler it could literally result in death.

Never bothered securing chemicals because my kids have been sensible from a very young age, as I think most kids are. My ds's first word was "hot" because I was often barking at him to keep away from the oven or a fresh cup of tea. He's never burnt himself once.

Even toddlers, most of them, aren't daft. Most of them understand if you're really clear which cupboards are "no, don't touch that".

This is at home of course where the "staff ratio" is usually 1:1. At a nursery etc I'd fully expect them to child proof everything

Also, be clear what they ARE allowed to do. Ds is 1.5yo and he knows that he's allowed to mess about with the contents of the tupperware drawer but other cupboards are no-no. He's also allowed to click the buttons on the washing machine/tumble dryer (child lock is on so nothing happens) but never go near the oven.

So it's not always No.

We did what we called reactive baby proofing... we saw what they were interested in and baby proofed against it. Our eldest would pull off anything like a corner protector that didn't look like it should be there for example.
DD2 was a little menace so we had to make only plastic plates were in low down cupboard she could pull out to her hearts content while the normal dinner plates were high up. And remove knives from the dishwasher ASAP and she wanted to "help". And make sure there wasn't furniture she could climb to get to windows. And...

Plug sockets... dont use the covers which you insert. British plugs have an inbuilt safety measure in the top pin, and by pushing anything that isn't a proper plug into the top hole you bypass this safety.

I think it depends on so many things, obviously mostly your home set up. But also - how old your child is when they learn to crawl/walk - early walkers are less likely to understand and follow instructions. My son was 16 months before walking by which point he understood no.

Also how compliant they are - my daughter understood and obeyed ‘no’. Her cousin just used to grin and carry on 😂

and also what they’re interested in - we never bothered doing the kitchen cupboards for my daughter (I can’t remember but assume she wasn’t interested) whereas if I wanted to be able to cook dinner and not spend the entire time intercepting my son opening drawers and cupboards, I needed them locked!

My son was 16 months before walking by which point he understood no.

Me too, both of mine were 14-15mo. It's a good point, I hadn't thought of that being a factor.

Still, mine were both crawling and physically able to reach the oven etc by 9-10mo but understood that it was a scary object not to go near. DS didn't even know what "hot" actually meant, but knew it meant something really bad and scary! (Now he knows because his dinner is sometimes too hot etc)

Maybe thats why DD2 was a wee menace, she crawled at 5 months. It was interesting! Never touched the oven though...

(12yo now and somehow never been to A&E despite the act first, think later appriach to life)

We have stair gates and cupboard locks atm, I'm mostly doing reactive baby proofing. She's only just 10 months and already a confident walker and climber, and does not understand no.

Or maybe she does, but she just laughs and carries on.

Absolutely secure any furniture that is of risk of tipping to the walls. They can pull up on something and potentially topple it in a split second and unsecured heavy furniture remains a risk long past the play pen stage- if a 4YO is a grabbing a book or something. Also baby proof their room in case they manage a 3am escape from the cot. But that’s personally where I’d leave it because I really don’t think it’s necessary, even with a 9 month old walker! You just watch them or you put them somewhere safe such as the playpen whilst you nip to the loo or in their highchair with some toys whilst you’re cooking dinner.

Also on the subject of stairgates the ones at the top of stairs are generally not recommended because if a DC climbs them then they’re then falling from a greater height than if the stairs were open so at risk of worse injury. Also any of the styles with a bar at the bottom are a trip hazard. If you want a way of securing them upstairs, probably not needed now but maybe once they go into a bed, then gate their bedroom and not the stairs.

I agree with PPs who say it depends on the child. It also depends on your house layout, and what rooms your child might be in unattended vs. with you. We put a coffee table away in the attic which was likely to tip over, but otherwise responded to the child. DS1 was desperate to get in the knife drawer and cupboard under the sink; DS2 isn't so we haven't bothered with drawer and cupboard locks. He does like to open the food cupboard and help himself to cream crackers so we 'baby-proofed' that by putting most of the crackers elsewhere, and assuming that anything in there has been licked by a toddler. Both DCs were good at stairs pretty quickly but unreliable (likely to get distracted halfway up and start playing) but DS2 has enough to do downstairs so he never climbs them unless one of us is up there doing something interesting. So no need for a downstairs stair gate.

Also, my MIL bought us a toy kitchen to put in our real kitchen and it's been a godsend. Kids just want to get involved with what you're doing at the same time.

Similarly my DM bought DS a toy mop, pretend cleaning spray, dustpan and brush and you wouldn't believe how much he's played with it lol