You want to know the best way to figure out what needs to be childproofed in your home? Invite friends over that have a child a few months older than yours. Let them loose, then watch as they find every. single. thing. in your house that isn’t nailed down, every item that’s choking size, every breakable thing that you thought was out of reach, every place they could pinch their fingers or poke an eye out or eat something they shouldn’t. They move fast, so you might want a pen and paper to take notes.
Honestly, this was how we realized we needed to start baby proofing the house with our first child. Our daughter wasn’t crawling yet, so we still lived in a home with pretty things sitting around and uncovered outlets. Our friends came over with their mobile toddler, and it was non-stop attempts at keeping the kid and our belongings unharmed.
Now that we have a second child, I’ve realized that different kids get into different things. We didn’t have to do near the amount of baby proofing with our daughter that we’ve had to with our son. There are a few items that we’ve come across (most of these I’ve learned about just from being at friends houses) that have made creating a baby-safe home so much easier.
Obviously, we baby proof to keep our kids safe from hazards around the house. Just as importantly, we baby proof so we don’t have to constantly hop up and grab things from our kids or somehow distract them from crawling under the kitchen sink or climbing up the side of their changing table. We do it so the house can be a free place to play and explore without giving us an ulcer. In the spirit of making things simpler for parents that are just a few months behind us, I’m sharing my top 10 list of awesome baby proofing products, that I didn’t know about before having kids!
(This post may contain affiliate links. You can find my full disclosure here.)
These are really awesome because they are so versatile, and also because they work on areas of your home that you may not have had a solution for before. Example: You can use these to keep sliding closet doors shut, keep regular doors open (or shut), keep cupboards closed, or your toilet lid shut. They are easy and quick to use, and you don’t even have to use a drill.
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Speaking of covering outlets, this is actually a really cool invention. Traditional outlet covers are nice and all, but sometimes it’s easy to forget to replace them after you use an outlet for something. This is especially important to us right now, because our youngest child is fascinated by outlets and is always pretending to “plug something in.” It’s given me more than a couple grey hairs. These self-closing outlet covers are cool, because you don’t really have to remember to do anything. Which is perfect when you’ve been severely sleep deprived for, well, years.
These magnetic cabinet locks are especially awesome if you have a kid that learned at a young age how to open other various types of cabinet locks that you assumed were childproof. Tip: make sure you don’t lose the magnet that opens the cupboards..
Is it just me, or do kids spend an inordinate amount of time being the perfect height to lose an eye running past the dining room table?! I can’t tell you how often our kids bonk their heads on these corner guards. We also have the same material along the edge of the fireplace at my parents house, because nobody needs to lose a tooth on that thing.
Call me crazy, but I’d love if my children reached adulthood will all of the fingers they were born with. Losing a finger in a door-pinching incident wasn’t really an issue when we only had one child, but whoa, is it ever on the list of possibilities now with two kids. There are multiple times per day that one kid has their fingers near the hinge of a door while the other one feels the need to slam it shut. It makes me cringe just thinking about it. There are pinch guards that act as bumpers, but I like this one because even more damage could be done on the hinge side of the door, and this acts specifically to protect kids from shoving their chubby little fingers in there.
Because being suprised by a hot burner on the stove is NEVER a good thing..Find ones that work with the stove you have. And while you’re at it, check to see if your oven has a lock feature. I finally figured out how ours works and it keeps our toddler from opening the oven, even when he hangs from the handle like a little monkey.
Baby Gate (that can bolt into the wall).
This is especially important when the gate is at the top of the stairs, like it is at our house. This is the same gate we have at home and we love it. Our kids have yet to figure out how to get it open. In fact, when guests come over, they can’t get it open, either!
This is another thing that we didn’t need for our first child, but definitely do for our second. He is now too big for his old baby tub, but too wild and squirmy and slippery for the regular tub. I literally cannot hold on to him and bathe him at the same time right now. I imagine my experience with him is similar to trying to bathe a cat without any hair. Plus, it’s great for traveling with little ones!
If your kid is a climber, this is one of the most important things you need in your quest to make your home as safe as possible. Kids can figure out all kinds of ways to climb up on furniture, and if it tips over and lands on them it could be seriously dangerous and even deadly. Make sure furniture, especially in their bedroom, is safely affixed to the wall so this doesn’t happen. It sounds like a major pain, but with straps like this it’s actually pretty easy.
Good luck! This is by no means a complete list of everything you need to do to keep your home safe, just a few of my favorites to make things easier for you.
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