Share the things you never thought you’d need to childproof for - £200 voucher to be won

[GraceEMumsnet]

Created for Duracell

What unexpected things have you child-proofed in your home? Whatever measures you’ve employed (however surprising!) we’d like to hear about them.

• Post your stories in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw
• One lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice

Here’s what Duracell has to say:
“Every year, hundreds of children accidentally ingest lithium coin cell batteries, which can have devastating and even fatal consequences if they do not receive medical attention immediately. Duracell is calling on parents across the country to #Take10 minutes to search their house for the 10 most common devices that take coin cell batteries and check those batteries are secure and not able to be accessed by children.”

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

A tub of hair wax.

Two year old DS smothered his hair in a full tub. He was like a duck with bobbles of water on its waterproof back!

I had to wash, wash and rewash his hair in washing up liquid to cut through the grease. Nothing else would remove it.

The fish tank when cleaning it & refreshing the water in the bath.

Turned out then 4 yo DD thought she'd help & used my toothbrush to scrub the sides of the tank 🤢

Child safety bottle tops on medications... she opened them easily then told me off for leaving on a shelf she could get too... only by dragging a chair over to climb up to get at it

Oh & yes to the cat litter too, though DD went even further & decided the cat litter tray was her toilet too

The ceiling… my twins did a great job decorating it with porridge and spaghetti!

The granular plant food. It already had a child proof lid FFS...but I turned away, looked back a minute later to see 11month old DS shovelling the granules down his throat. (Poison line confined no damage done!)

My son would try eating anything and everything from playdoh to hama beads, to sudocrem. So had to be really careful! He once found a piece of sausage that was several days old that had escaped into a corner of the dining room and ate that before we got to him but he was ok so earnt the nickname iron belly! My other son was obsessed with anything messy so would love to find washing powder to sprinkle over the floor. So had to get cupboard locks on everything! He also loved to get the eggs out the fridge and throw them on the floor thinking they were like a rubber ball.

Definitely the Sudocreme.

How could one small pot full produce such a huge mess…?

The rabbit cage.
My youngest loves the rabbit and he loves her. At any random point of the day they would run by me doing the great escape to her room or I would find her with her head in his cage. They also enjoy making a mess around the kitchen with his hay (which has now been moved higher)

Fridge - After he thought he was Mr Independent and capable of pouring himself some milk without saying anything to me

Its the American style fridge so easy for him to access

I know it's been said already but I vividly remember that one incident with DS1 and sudocreme! Took ages to clean and I made sure everything was put away properly after that! :)

Also the cat...

Had to move my living room around to stop the tiny human from climbing on the high window sills. He wasn’t happy but has figured out other places to climb.

The cat food- he takes her biscuits and tries to feed them to her individually 😂

The clothes horse- to him it’s a ladder now and he’s already broken it! 19 months going on daredevil

The dried cat food you tend to leave down all day.
We decided to cut the angst and give her her very own small plastic bowl of them. That’s when the health visitor made an unscheduled visit

@MargosKaftan

The 2kg bag of rice.

My make up bag. (Its never the Boots own brand stuff they go for is it? Toddlers seem to know the Chanel lippy will be more upsetting to find smeared over all the walls.)

The DVDs. Obviously most people don't even have them anymore. Its been 9 years since dc1 was playing with them when I was on the phone to someone, but last weekend DH went to offer a friend the James Bond Dr No film, and found it had the Italian Job in the box. And no, Dr No wasn't in the Italian Job box. (I think we are at the stage of flinging them all rather than go through and trying and sort.)

Ours all ended up under the floorboards, posted through the gaps in our lovingly revealed and waxed original boards….

The floorboards.

As above, our lovingly revealed, stripped and waxed boards provided the perfect motor skills development opportunity.

CDs
DVDs
Any kind of disc
And…
Credit cards
Driving licence.

Massive rugs purchased.

Then tape to mitigate the trip hazard

My make up, it's never been the same since I had a Daughter!

My car. They found random things and used them to scratch off the window tint. When they got bored of that they opened the car door while I was driving (they were 1,2 and 3 and I was tired!) I had to pull over and google how to put child locks on and remove everything from their reach.

I second sudocreme, make up and vaseline - virtually impossible to get out of carpets and upholstery. We had to hide all scissors in our house too as my 5 year old kept trying to cut our two year old’s hair!

I have to child proof the toilet roll it always ends up blocking the toilet or wasted in one a few goes 😝

We had to put a padlock on the pantry door as when given the chance our DD would run off with the dried pasta and try to eat it

The raw vegetable shelf (luckily he mostly took a liking to biting into the avocados and sucking out the insides).

The TV remote (it went missing for a week until I found it in a shoe).

A bedsheet drying on the radiator. Came back in to the living room to find DS bundled up under it.

My make up AND my favourite body spray!

Bought a fridge lock to stop my toddler opening it all the time (to watch the light turn on/off) and somehow managed to accidentally attached the fridge lock to the end of my own tongue
I'd been putting it together and I couldn't get the hinge mechanism to snap into place so I had the bright idea to bite it shut....it created a little vacuum and sucked the end of my tongue into it and then locked in place.
4 hours later in A&E, ring cutter didn't work, maintenance guy couldn't remove it and in the end the only that got it removed was a veneer drill from the dentist next door to the hospital!! I lost the tip of my tongue though and couldn't talk without lisping for days.

Won't be child proofing again! Although I think it was more me that needed protection from myself

Another casualty of being a cat owner! As soon as my son could crawl - he would make a beeline (or should that be a fe-line - sorry, couldn't resist the pun!) for the cat biscuits & scoff as many as he could before raced across the room to remove them or him! Poor cats had to learn to eat quick! :)

Gosh I'm still baby proofing and my sons 17 ( severely autistic).
Just when I think I've cracked it he grows another inch and I have to start again 🤣
He can open any cupboard lock in seconds and I have the window keys in my pocket at all times to keep him safe 🥰.
His little sister has realised he's a great help at reaching snacks or noisy toys I might have hidden to give my ears a rest so they team up to cause mischief 😩.
It's a good job there both blooming adorable or they would be on eBay as a BOGOF package 🥰🤣

My address book.