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

Hide everything out of sight

Stair gates and cupboard locks are very annoying but essential!

Child safety locks on the back seat of my company car. Very awkward when I'm taking a client out for lunch only to find he can't get out.

Hot drinks are always out of reach. Liquid pods are locked away. Nothing dangerous at child or dog level.

Keeping the stair gate at the top of the stairs is a pest, but gives me peace of mind during the night.

Stair gates, high cupboards for cleaning products, and cutting food up small (particularly grapes!)

The main one has been screwing all boxes, and heavy furnishings into the walls. This is to stop the kids climbing them and accidentally pulling them down onto themselves. Also a bin with a safety lock provided to be a good buy.

Gates on doors and child proof plugs

Tidy up - ALL the time - which feels pointless as they do nothing but UNtidy it

Luckily my child-proofing days are behind me but when my kids were little we had stair gates top and bottom, pads on sharp corners, cupboard locks, fireguard, plug socket stoppers, you name it.... the most inconvenient I guess were the stair gates as they had to be opened and closed every trip up and down the stairs, for about 10 years.... happy days! ;)

We have safety gates around the house and also have magnet locks on the kitchen and utility cupboards to stop our daughter from getting her hands on anything dangerous!

I dont like it being branded as inconvenient . Nothing is inconvenient if it is ensuring my children are safe

Stair gates! They drive me crazy, especially when I come in and have things in my hands, a toddler to herd upstairs, and desperately need a wee!

Also, the dishwasher tables and laundry detergent live nowhere near the dishwasher or washer so they can be up high and safely inaccessible to curious hands.

All unused sockets have stoppers in them and are kept turned off.

Otherwise we are pretty laid back, luckily our son doesn't get into things he shouldn't,

we have used the little sticky foam corner covers to reduce the impact of these when they are run into at full speed (they do lose their stickyness over time it seems); also a lock over the freezer door which in the end was a kind of IQ test to allow us to see how many minutes it took everyone to work out how to open it (thought my son was bright in working it out by age 4 but my daughter age 2 simply ripped the adhesive pads at the side and removed the whole thing). they still havent worked out the ratchet plastic handles that hold cupboard doors closed fortunately

Child locks on all the kitchen cupboards. They took some getting used to, now if I open someone elses cupboard it doesn't feel right if there's no child lock on it :)

I live in a flat so I dont use stairgates though I'd love to have one yo block the kitchen off buy it's open plan. The kitchen cupboard locks are a godsend

Got rid of rugs in the living and dining room! Terrified of her repeating her trip over the slightly dog-eared corner again!

my son is allergic to peanuts so my husband always kept a jar for himself on the highest shelf/ My son now lives away , he is well over 6 ft and we still keep the jar on the top shelf

Installed safety gates and used wedges to keep doors open (my niece had her thumb shut in a door and nearly lost it) I had a fear of the kids fingers being slammed in a door so all doors stayed open never mind how draughty it was

We got stair gates, one for top and one for the bottom of the stairs, lost count how many times I tripped over the bottom one, but needs must

My boys are a bit older now but we used to have stair gates, kitchen cupboard locks and socket covers

We put key locks on all our windows. This then allows the kids to open the windows but not enough to jump or fall out of. This was after I saw my son leaning right out of the bedroom window!!

Everything done in our home has been essential in our roles as parents and far from an inconvenience.
We have cupboard locks but still put all cleaning and washing items in a higher cupboard and are just used to it now, same with medication. Stair gates top and bottom, all normal things others do.
The only thing I can think of that gets us strange looks sometimes is fit a stair gate on the outside of our front and back doors. The lock on the inside of these is just a twirl keyless one so easily sussed out by any inquisitive toddler so the gates on the outside of the door made sense to us and stops children and pups escaping.

Cutting up grapes is a bit of a tedious task but something I always do - even still for my 8year old!

Stair gates drive me crazy.. the amount of times I bang my elbow or stub my toe 🙄I've lost count but wouldn't be without them as they do keep the little ones safe.