Maaaaybe this wouldn’t work. By: Craig Wyzik – CC BY 2.0 I have a four-month-old little ball of love who is about to become a ROLLING ball of love. My partner and I are looking into baby-proofing — or rather, baby safe-ing as I like to say — our two bedroom apartment.
Given how over-the-top advertising for baby-proofing items is, I’d love to get a few tips from Offbeat Families readers on baby-proofing in a sensible fashion. I’ve read the baby-proofing archives but didn’t take much from it other than look into baby gates and outlet covers (which we have).
Does anyone have any advice about reasonable baby-proofing, or recommendations for not totally crazy products? — Cortney
Working tirelessly to bring you stimulating content day after day, our team of Offbeat Editors will not sleep until you've gotten your offbeat fix.
Comments on What non-crazy steps did you take to baby proof your home?
Also, here’s how my dad babyproofed his stove when I was two: he told me it was hot and not to touch it, then let me touch it when I said I didn’t believe him. He wasn’t trying to deliberately hurt me and he wasn’t being abusive. There’s nothing wrong with that. Kids aren’t dumb and they don’t like to get hurt. It’s just a matter of figuring out which mistakes end up being teaching tools and which end up doing real harm.
We just waited until the kid was getting into stuff and if it was bothersome enough to get a baby lock, then we’d get one. We ended up getting a few drawer locks and an oven lock. The door knob lock didn’t work, so we spend a while with all the doors locked until he figured that out.
Our little one is only 2 and a half months so I don’t have that much useful advice. That said, we do have some of those little cabinet lock things. We got them because our cats are little troublemakers and like to get into the cabinets. They are kind of genius. I will definitely be using them on lower cabinets where chemicals, cleaners, or dangerous cooking supplies are kept when Ella starts to crawl.
I know this is an older topic, but I wanted to throw in my two cents for anyone reading this down the road. I don’t have any kids myself, but my boyfriend has a two year old sister and my aunt and uncle have an almost two year old, so I’ve been around toddlers a lot lately. My aunt and uncle have what I think is a genius solution to Ellie trying to play with the knobs on the stove; they just take them off, so there’s nothing for her to turn. They keep them in a tupperware on the counter and when they need to use the stove or oven, they just grab one from the container, stick it on, turn it to whatever they need, and then pull it off again.
And with my bf’s little sister, they honestly didn’t do that much baby proofing as they still had some up from when his other sister was a toddler. They’ve got a gate at the bottom of the stairs, covers on all the outlets, and those plastic things on the inside of all the cabinet doors so that you can’t open them. They also have doorknob covers on the basement and bathroom doors and foam edging around the sides of the coffee table. She’s also really smart and you usually only have to tell her once that she shouldn’t touch something. When I watch her I usually tell her that “That’s not a toy” and she’ll repeat back to me “Nottatoy” and put it back or leave it alone.
And this was a while ago, but when my brothers were babies we had these outlet covers that covered the whole socket, rather than sticking into it. And it was built in such a way that you would plug things in and then close the cover over those and there were slots for the cords to come out. Not sure if they still make those (I’m sure they do) but they’re great for young and old kids. I was probably ten or so when we had them and I couldn’t even get them open.
Posted by
Also, here’s how my dad babyproofed his stove when I was two: he told me it was hot and not to touch it, then let me touch it when I said I didn’t believe him. He wasn’t trying to deliberately hurt me and he wasn’t being abusive. There’s nothing wrong with that. Kids aren’t dumb and they don’t like to get hurt. It’s just a matter of figuring out which mistakes end up being teaching tools and which end up doing real harm.
We just waited until the kid was getting into stuff and if it was bothersome enough to get a baby lock, then we’d get one. We ended up getting a few drawer locks and an oven lock. The door knob lock didn’t work, so we spend a while with all the doors locked until he figured that out.
Our little one is only 2 and a half months so I don’t have that much useful advice. That said, we do have some of those little cabinet lock things. We got them because our cats are little troublemakers and like to get into the cabinets. They are kind of genius. I will definitely be using them on lower cabinets where chemicals, cleaners, or dangerous cooking supplies are kept when Ella starts to crawl.
I know this is an older topic, but I wanted to throw in my two cents for anyone reading this down the road. I don’t have any kids myself, but my boyfriend has a two year old sister and my aunt and uncle have an almost two year old, so I’ve been around toddlers a lot lately. My aunt and uncle have what I think is a genius solution to Ellie trying to play with the knobs on the stove; they just take them off, so there’s nothing for her to turn. They keep them in a tupperware on the counter and when they need to use the stove or oven, they just grab one from the container, stick it on, turn it to whatever they need, and then pull it off again.
And with my bf’s little sister, they honestly didn’t do that much baby proofing as they still had some up from when his other sister was a toddler. They’ve got a gate at the bottom of the stairs, covers on all the outlets, and those plastic things on the inside of all the cabinet doors so that you can’t open them. They also have doorknob covers on the basement and bathroom doors and foam edging around the sides of the coffee table. She’s also really smart and you usually only have to tell her once that she shouldn’t touch something. When I watch her I usually tell her that “That’s not a toy” and she’ll repeat back to me “Nottatoy” and put it back or leave it alone.
And this was a while ago, but when my brothers were babies we had these outlet covers that covered the whole socket, rather than sticking into it. And it was built in such a way that you would plug things in and then close the cover over those and there were slots for the cords to come out. Not sure if they still make those (I’m sure they do) but they’re great for young and old kids. I was probably ten or so when we had them and I couldn’t even get them open.