What necessary but inconvenient things do you do to make your home safe for your children? Share with Fairy Non Bio - £300 voucher to be won

[JustineBMumsnet]

Unassuming things in the home can be a danger to small children, whether it’s food you’d eat yourself without concern, a small step from one room to another or a box of laundry detergent in the cupboard. Fairy Non Bio would like to hear about the necessary but inconvenient things you do to keep your home safe for your children.

Here’s what Fairy Non Bio has to say: “Keeping your home safe from your little explorers can be time consuming, but because of all the chemicals in laundry detergent we want to ensure only mums & dads can access them. With our new Pods Child-Lock pack this can give you extra peace of mind, close with a ‘Click' and store up high behind a closed cupboard.”

Do you have stair gates in every doorway that you curse every time you simply want to carry a cup of tea AND a snack to the sofa? Perhaps you use foam padding on your table corners that your child pulls off thinking it’s a game or have cupboard locks that take ages to undo?

All who post the necessary inconvenient things they do to keep their home safe for their children below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight Terms and Conditions apply

Socket covers in the UK are unsafe and are more likely to create a fire/electric shock hazard than prevent one. Electric sockets in the UK are designed to be safe even if you stick pencils, paper clips or little fingers in a hole. The live connection points are covered unless a plug pin is inserted in the top hole, which is darn near impossible to do without using a plug. The only way the live connections are exposed is if you stick a plug pin-shaped thing into the top hole and leave the bottom two empty, which is impossible to do with a plug but very easy to do with an upside-down socket cover. The socket covers also aren’t designed to comply with any particular standards and the bottom pins can be too short, which risks degrading the shutters and live connections. If you have socket covers, take them out and throw them away. Horrible things.

Anyway...

I inconveniently have to keep the upstairs windows closed and locked to stop the DC escaping through them onto the extension roof

Cover things up so you do not have shoe rack but a shoe cupboard. Take away cutlery as soon as you have cleaned. Do live iron cloths out but put in the cupboard.

install cctv cameras and barbed wire fencing

When she was younger the safety catches on all the kitchen cabinets etc were inconvenient

Cupboard and fridge locks are a necessary pain otherwise my son liked to pull everything out on the floor, but nearly every time I go to pull the fridge door open I forget that it wont open more than a few centimetres, also all our framed family photos and momentos have all wither been placed very nigh up out of reach of packed away for now

our DCs are older now but we used to have stair gates and kitchen cupboard child locks not sure we saw them at the time as an inconvenience though, just a necessary stop to little explorers.

We did all the life threatening things but other than that children will explore and get into mischief part of the learning of life

We made a tall wooden gate for our back garden so that my son couldn't 'escape' onto the front of the house and so that he would be safe. One day he 'disappeared' and rang the front doorbell. He had managed to crawl through a tiny gap under the gate! Oops.

Nothing except stair gates and we didn't Even bother with them for the third. All have grown up fine!

Not for children of y own, but for my lovely nephew I have child locked my inconveniently floor level bathroom cabinet!

DD is almost 7 but has some additional needs. She can obviously climb over stair gates and get child locks open with ease, climb stairs and open doors. When I moved into the property there was no lock on the cellar door, so I now have a key lock for it. I obviously do all the usual, keep medicines and cleaning products etc. in the high cupboards, which isn't really inconvenient. The most 'inconvenient' (if you can call it that) thing is I have to keep my EpiPen high up, and put my handbag on a high shelf in case she were to get hold of one, it's only really 'inconvenient' as if I was to have an anaphylactic shock it would take longer to get to.

Stairgates!
They have to be the most inconvenient safety device.
Those plug covers can be a right PITA too if you have any issues with your grip.
Outside the home- baby car seats. There must be a way to carry they that isn't murder on your back / posture, but it eludes me!

stair gates are a must and they are super annoying but definitely a necessity.

Childlocking - I struggle to open any cupboards

We used to lock the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, with a silly lock that needed a key, DH would invariably pocket the blasted thing, walk away to work, whistling as he went, with said key in trouser pocket! I'd have to break into the cupboard to access the Calpol, as there always seemed to be a toothache, ear-ache or I would need a safety-pin because I kept losing the cord for my tracksuit bottoms inside the waistband! By the time we eventually sorted out this problem, the DC's had matured!

Both hubby and I need to take medicines every day and we make sure they are stored in a high cupboard to keep them away from inquisitive little ones. Not particularly convenient as I'm quite short myself and often have to ask hubby to get mine down for me!

I cut their grapes in half.

Stair gates. How many bruises? Grrrrr!! Also, when they were teeny I took all the books etc off the bottom of the bookshelves. Then when they were a bit bigger I took everything off the next shelf up. Etc etc, until only the top couple of shelves had anything on them. It was safer because they couldn't pull anything on to themselves but it looked awful!

A stair gate is very inconvenient but very necessary; with my first child I didn't put a stair gate up as soon as I should have and found him halfway up the stairs, one was installed pdq.

Had to buy a much heavier tv, so it didnt get knocked / smashed like the last one

can't think of anything

my ds addicted to my iphone have put a parental control app on it to avoid hefty bills and access to the internet or you tube

We have magnet locks on our cupboards...can I ever find the magnet to open them!! Especially when I’m doing everything one handed carrying LO

Absolutely essential I agree and 100% worth the inconvenience but I do hope my LO doesn’t pick up some of the words I use when I’m trying to get in them “SHH..UGAR MUFFINS”

Stair gate was our first essential. New build home, plasterboard walls, fitting it was a nightmare. Had to get one that doesn't go across the top of the stairs from banister to wall but actually at a diagonal from banister to a bedroom doorframe. Wouldn't have trusted attaching it to the wall.

Kitchen cupboard locks the next essential although went for the adhesive and magnetic ones. Lasted about a fortnight before he started pulling them open anyway. Now it's big plastic boxes and most things moved out of drawers and cupboards and stored in the boxes and placed above the upper cupboards.

Household chemicals whether in kitchen, bathroom or garage need to be kep in a locked cupboard, to which smaller children cannot get access.

Why take the risk?

Garden pond is also covered with fine but strong mesh.