When Miss H became more mobile, we did some basic babyproofing around the house, and thought we were done babyproofing. My friends, you are never quite done! We are not (in my opinion) super overprotective, hovering parents, and we have no intention of wrapping our home in bubblewrap and pillows. But as Miss H went from crawling to hesitantly walking to running around the house grabbing everything in sight, we’ve had to beef up our childproofing.
Case in point – we had a lot of this happening:
Yes, that’s Miss H just lounging on the stairs with the dog. Any time we turned our backs, she was speedily crawling up those stairs. Now, the top of the stairs have a door that we always keep shut. But the bottom of the stairs was unfortunately fair game for her, and she liked to flex her freedom to climb stairs more much than we ever thought she would. We’d initially thought it would be fine as-is and that we’d always be able to keep an eye on her anyway. Umm, no. The kid is fast and can be up those stairs in the blink of an eye.
So this week, we did this:
Miss H isn’t very happy about the new gate, but we are thrilled. Since the area behind her leads into our living room/play area, and the opposite direction leads to her room and bathroom, Miss H can now safely play in the basement. It is amazing! As you can see, it is a rather untraditional/difficult space, so we had to struggle to find a gate to work. We ended up using the Summer Infant Custom Walk Through Gate. It’s extra wide and can work in weird spaces.
We’re actually quite familiar with this gate as we installed one a while back in our master bedroom (another weird/wide space):
With that said, I thought I’d share a few more of our favorite baby proofing purchases.
Cabinet Locks
We have these Munchkin XTRAGUARD Latches all over our house! Now they’re not very discreet, but they do the job, especially on furniture that might not work with a more traditional lock and/or instances where you cannot drill to install a different kind of lock/latch. Here’s a couple of places we’ve used them:
On metal cabinets in our laundry area.
We also have them on the drawer of our entertainment center and on a 3-drawer cabinet in Miss H’s bathroom. They do the job and technically fit within the grey and white color scheme we have going on in our house.
Also put to good use in our house are the Safety 1st Magnetic Locks. We have these installed on all of our kitchen cabinets that are within Miss H’s reach. These are incredibly robust and you have to have the magnetic key to unlock them. We keep it on the fridge for easy (adult) access. I will be honest that I thought these were a terrible idea when Mr. H bought them, as I thought it would be a huge hassle having to constantly unlock your cabinets. It is, at first. But like anything else you adjust and now I don’t think anything of it. You just slide the “key” over the front of the cabinet until you hear the click. And when they are locked they are definitely locked – Miss H won’t be getting into anything she shouldn’t!
(Note: these have to be drilled into the cabinet doors, so probably not an option if you are a renter. Also, you can set them to an unlocked position if you’re going to be constantly opening a cabinet and don’t want to keep unlocking, but we try and stay in the habit of always having them locked).
Close up of the installed lock on inside of door.
Don’t worry, Miss H is not allowed to play near open cabinets or with the key. This was only for the photo.
Door Latches/Covers
We have bi-fold doors for our furnace closet/storage area. This is also, incidentally, right outside Miss H’s bedroom door. So it’s a double whammy because it’s a space we want to keep her out of, and she passes it multiple times a day! Enter the Mommy’s Helper Bi-Fold Door Lock. It’s a simple piece of plastic that slides onto the top of the door and keeps it from folding. Want to open the door? Just slide it to the side.
And, to keep Miss H from opening doors, we of course have the super simple door knob covers. (I don’t think these are revolutionary, but the picture of Miss H is pretty cute – even if she does look a tad annoyed).
Beyond all of this, we’ve done the standard stuff: wall-mounts for heavy furniture, outlet covers, toilet locks, foam covers for sharp edges, and stove knob covers (which I don’t even want to really mention as ours aren’t great – Miss H regularly turns up the heat while I’m cooking even though the cover is on!).
As I’d mentioned, we thought we were done babyproofing months ago, but living with an active toddler has brought a wave of newly installed devices in our home the past few weeks – including the new gate, more cabinet latches, more outlet covers, and covering sharp edges of furniture.
It’s seems neverending, but keeping our sweet girl as safe as we can is worth the adjustments in our home. Oh, and the gates are also fantastic for keeping the dog contained as needed – bonus!
Do you have some favorite babyproofing items that have been helpful around the house?
Babyproofing part 3 of 3
1. Babyproofing by Checklists2. Our baby friendly living room by Mrs. Superhero
3. Hopscotch Babyproofing Favorites by Mrs. Hopscotch
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
Baby H and her facial expressions crack me up. I love her.
Totally unrelated – has she had a haircut!?
We have some tacky old plastic things we put on our cabinet door knobs. I’m thinking of getting the magnetic ones but I’m sure we would lose the key…
grapefruit / 4400 posts
Love these pics of Miss H!
We actually have been using the Munchkin XTRAGUARD Latches on our bi-fold doors (we have two sets), but now I’m wondering if I should use the bi-fold locks instead…
pomelo / 5228 posts
Love the photos! Especially her chilling on the stairs with the dog
persimmon / 1128 posts
We also have those magnetic locks and love them. Well except that one time I locked the “key” inside the cabinet, and had to run to BRU to buy another one. ::face palm::
guest
I like the sliding outlet covers because there is no little plug cap to pull out or put back.
grapefruit / 4717 posts
There are so many things to babyproof. Now that we have a toddler, we also keep finding more! We have those lever doorknobs on every door of the house, including the front door — not a standard round knob. Anyone find a good door knob cover for that type of handle? I just haven’t seen one rated high enough on Amazon.
grapefruit / 4717 posts
@mediagirl: Yup: http://www.hellobee.com/2013/09/25/my-kid-is-the-best-yours-is-too/
blogger / pomegranate / 3300 posts
We just recently took down some of our gates. It was a little scary to give Lilly free reign of the house but the boys could open all the gates anyways so it was a bit pointless. But we still have some door knob covers and magnetic locks.
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
She’s so dang cute in the photos! Our house is far from being baby proof, and I’m not sure how we will. We have cords and wires everywhere…. Yikes!
pomegranate / 3225 posts
Thank you for this post. I need help with this… it seems so overwhelming.
grapefruit / 4671 posts
did any of the locks damage your furniture? I’m worried about ruining my lovely cabinets.
blogger / nectarine / 2010 posts
She’s adorable! We did far less than you. I put chemicals in the cabinet above the fridge and have no locks on the kitchen cabinets except the one under the sink (just a simple thing that goes between the handles.) I put gates at the top of the stairs when he started crawling and they were up for about a year (down now.) They mostly served to keep him upstairs while I showered
The one at the bottom of the stairs lasted about a week. Then he just got really good at going up at 9m and down at about 12m. I let him climb those stairs a million times ’til the novelty wore off just because it was too difficult to secure a gate at the bottom. Ugh! We also have outlet covers. That’s about it. I’m sure if we have a 2nd, they’ll be a rebel who needs 100,000x’s more than what we did for M
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
Wow! Can you guys come baby proof for me?!? I just has the horrible realization that I need to do this again! Ugh.
blogger / apricot / 366 posts
@mediagirl: Yes, she’s had many haircuts
And she’s definitely due for one again, and this time I’m vowing we will pay someone to do it because it stresses me out to cut her hair! And we keep the key for the cabinets on the fridge since it’s a magnet. So far so good! We’ve had no mishaps.
@pregnantbee: I know! There seems to always be something new that we didn’t even notice she could or would reach or get into!
@plantains: You have to screw them in to the inside of the cabinet doors, but I personally think it’s fine. I guess if we wanted to remove them some day then the insides of the doors wouldn’t look great. But you can just set the locks to the “off” position if you don’t want to use them, so I assume we’ll always just keep them installed.
@Mrs. Stroller: Our big issue with the stairs was less about Miss H’s skills in navigating them and more about our dog liking to run up and down them with her, therefore distracting her and bumping into her, which had me worried because as soon as we’d turn our back she was up the stairs with the dog! So maybe our stairs are more or less dog proofed
@Mrs. Paintbrush: Oh come on, baby proofing is fun! Ha
guest
Awe… She is just soooo adorable. I love those cabinet locks. I have been looking for a set of locks. After reading this blog, I definitely want them. The gate is great, too. It will work perfect in my home. Thanks for share all these products with us. It has helped me find what I was looking for.