How did you manage babyproofing when your partner would not prioritise it?

[Canitgetbetter]

Baby could be crawling any day now.
So much to do - usual baby proofing stuff, including securing furniture and fitting babygates, plus outstanding jobs that DH has put off for months/years.

I am just about keeping on top of the day to day stuff (all the washing, weaning, bathing) and my own very basic care - I'm just not getting the 1-2hr stretches I need to do anything more substantial.

DH is not prioritising getting things done in the house - he is not playing golf etc but taking extra shifts at work (not essential) and making out he doesn't have a choice (he does) and plenty faffing around. He insists on taking baby when I don't need him to - for me to shower and eat breakfast for example - then gives her back so he can do "his stuff". Often household related but could easily be bumped for just.one.weekend.

I made plans to go to friends for a couple of days so he could crack on uninterrupted and he accepted last minute weekend work. I'm so down about his behaviour I cancelled the visit. Plus I figured I will pass him baby for a least 2-3 hours when back from work and I will do as much as I can.

Do I just do as much as I can and wait until she's crawling and let him panic then? During that period go out all day to avoid the stress of trying to keep her safe at home?

I don't have anyone local who can watch baby for me.

I'm looking for practical tips and how others managed.

I can imagine some people saying "oh we left it to the last minute!" and still having a team mentality about it. I just feel like we're not a team and he refuses to acknowledge the stress this is causing me. I'm usually pretty self sufficient and it's been hard losing various capacities after becoming a mum, and seeing him squander all the free time I no longer have.

Thanks if you read to the end.

I got in a handy man. He installed stair gates, locks to stop drawers automatically fully opening. Same for kitchen cupboards. And I ordered sticky corners off Amazon to put on sharp corners eg coffee table. Well worth the investment. I also used a travel cot as a play pen when I couldn’t watch DC and cook or clean at same time. Peace of mind is priceless. Useless men less so.

I would get a quote from a handy man and say that unless he does the jobs in x time then you will be getting a handy man.
To be honest though we didn’t do that much, stair gates I did myself and cupboard locks took no time. We didn’t have furniture that needed securing but I would have got a handy man to do that if DH had been awkward.
It depends on your home set up but with first DC with a small kitchen they didn’t come into the kitchen and second time I had a play pen or used the baby walker

We didn’t really do a load of baby proofing. Mine made it to teens and I have not killed them yet. Stair gates are easy to install as are wall brackets. I moved things out of reach that were breakable. I’d literally buy the gate and the brackets and stand there until they were installed if you don’t want to just do it yourself. It literally takes 10 minutes so you shouldn’t need to give him a weekend. It’s more of a right, let’s put the baby gates in now! And stand there til it’s done.

It's not that much work...I bought 2 stair gates then put plastic things on the edges of the quartz counters and a few door catches you can get magnet ones that take a minite to install

You dh sounds annoying though....

If my DP is taking forever to do something, I wait until he’s around and go set everything up, the second he hears a drill he comes running to do it

Get a handyman in, preferably someone he knows like a neighbour, friends husband or family member, that way you only have to pay someone once and he'll be embarassed enough to do the rest himself

Honestly, I just have a push fit gate for the living room and some stick on cupboard locks in the kitchen and that's it. She isn't upstairs crawling around unless in a closed room with me. I've taught both my kids how to use stairs safely from the minute they started crawling also, not that I'd let them just have at it but it's a good thing to do.

This also works 🤣

You could set baby up with some toys in your line of sight and fit pressure fit stairgates without needing to drill (if they are suitable for your space). Or even the drilled ones wouldn't take more than an hour although you will need DH to have the baby. I don't think he sounds very supportive though.

What exactly is on your to do list because like others here I’m finding it difficult to think of anything that would take 1-2 hours to do, so I’m assuming you have something pretty major like a room that has unsafe flooring and needs recarpeting or something.

We put up a stair gate which took about 2 mins as it was push to fit and secured some wires by the tv unit. We didnt bother with cupboard locks just moved the bleach to a high cupboard.

Where’s all the extra money going? Use it to Get a handy man. I’d be suss of the extra shifts if you’re on your knees with housework and self care and you don’t need the money, personally.
is he definitely working? and definitely not in secret debt? If it’s neither of these things why is he taking so many shifts and not helping you. Maybe that’s already an issue you’re dealing with though. Sorry you’re dealing with a useless person.

personally I just got a pen at first and then saw what we needed as we went.
you do definitely need to secure furniture though and you’ll probably want to install some baby gates but it’s probably 2 hours work unless your house is massive or you actually have loads of dangerous things lying around. The rest isn’t particularly urgent.
if you don’t have a pen it might be an idea to get one anyway so you have a bit more time you can do things that you need, whilst they’re occupied and safe. It’s easier than baby proofing entire rooms.

We put a stair gate up and used some elastic hair bands for our cleaning cupboard. Not sure what else you need to do.

We just baby gated the kitchen door so we didn’t have to faff around with the drawers etc!

Didn’t baby proof per se. If you have any free standing ikea type furniture or floor mirrors they should be anchored, but we did that pre having our own kids as I wouldn’t want a mirror falling on a niece any more than I would my own baby, and I moved all the hazard stuff in the kitchen like the cleaning products to the wall cupboards. Then when I wanted to leave them for 2 minutes to go for a wee or something I’d just close them in the living room with the door or pop them in the cot. It worked fine. What exactly do you need doing OP that you can’t manage yourself?

First reply nails it. Get a handyman to fit your gates etc. Also if you declutter a lot, there aren't as many hazards. Make sure anything poisonous is well out of reach. View all objects as potential choke hazards...until they are not. Good luck.

I’m also not sure what needs to be done. Can you write a list so we can help? Are you anxious about your baby’s safety? I didn’t put in any stair gates or draw/cupboard stops and everything was fine. Your mention a lot of ‘passing the baby’ between you and your DH. What did you mean by that? Does your baby not spend time alone in a safe space on the floor? And definitely don’t cancel time with your friends again! You need time to chill.

We used pressure stair gates which took 10 mins max to install. I bought a packet of plug socket things that I stuck in empty, accessible sockets. I moved cleaning supplies to a high up kitchen cupboard and put the Tupperware under the kitchen sink. In the bathrooms I put the bleach on the windowsill. We had a sideboard with bottles of alcohol in one of the cupboards. I took the door knob off and reversed it so it was inside the door and we used a ruler to open the door. That was it.

Your DH sounds useless, but are you sure you’re not making a mental mountain out of this?

I've just remembered we had a BabyDan playpen in white which could also double as a room divider.

I’m wondering op if there is something quite unusual about your house/situation that is rendering this more difficult than the norm? Maybe loads of different stairs or loads of unscrewed in book shelves or something? I just bought stairs gates and fixed them in when dd1 was having a nap. Didn’t do anything else.

Love this!!! 😅

We didn’t do any 🤷‍♀️. We bought a few baby gates but these weren’t fixed to the wall they didn’t need any effort to put them up. Never needed to secure any furniture either. Do you really have that much to do

Also, you might not need stair gates etc. dd2 was a very cautious baby, so she didn’t even try to do the stairs till she knew she could come down. Bless her, I think we have on video her first time of going up one, down one, up two, down two etc till she was sure she could achieve it safely.

We had a stair gate but nothing else. TBH once they are crawling you need to supervise whether you have baby-proofed or not so I was never really sure what a lot of the baby proofing was for.

I literally didn’t baby proof anything. (We didn’t have stairs so didn’t need a stair gate). Just make sure there are no wires on the floor/accessable. If they started going through the cupboards I just said ‘no’. I had a playpen for if I needed to contain baby while I ran to the toilet or whatever and that was it. But I always watched them closely

But why should the ops husband be any more capable of operating a drill than she is? Op - what is the reason you think he should do this, rather than you? Is it because he can’t/wont ever take the baby on his own to give you a chance? It’s quite hard to fathom exactly what is going on.