Baby Proofing Ideas
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My kids are getting older. Bitter-sweetly, I realized that they’ve reached a milestone as we remove some (not all) of the baby proofing equipment around our house. As we took down our baby gate and our hallway felt like it grew double in size, I reflected on how useful these supplies were. They acted as a second protective layer, helping to prevent my babies from hurting themselves. Though I know it’s not for everyone, baby proofing my home made me feel more comfortable as my babies grew and went exploring, as kids do. Baby proofing a home in a way that is functional for your family without making your home aesthetic look like baby jail, takes some time and careful thought. With that in mind, here are some baby proofing ideas and some of my family’s favorite baby proofing products.
Install Baby Gates
We have a 2 story home, so the first thing that we did to baby proof our house was install baby gates at the bottom and top of our staircase. We used the Dreambaby Gates mainly because we were looking for a good gate that could be installed using pressure mounting, in an attempt to save our walls from damage. Even though we were ultimately not able to prevent our wall and banister from being damaged by installing a baby gate, we were pleasantly surprised by how effective these gates were. They are sturdy, user friendly, stay open when you want them too, and the lock was designed so well that our kids never figured out how to unlock them. Having working baby gates at the top and bottom of our stairs ensured that the only times that my kids were able to practice going up and down stairs were with the supervision of an adult.
Playpen
Looking back at it, designating a safe area to play with a playpen were the good old days. We used the Skip Hop Expandable Playpen for both of our kids and it did not disappoint. Doing things like cooking and cleaning around the living room seemed easier when our kids were young enough to be enclosed in a playpen. I especially loved that it was easy to set up, spacious, had a cute wall activity center, and had walls that were transparent enough for us to see what our kids were up to from afar. I say that those days were the good old days because a playpen was mostly useful before they grew stronger and learned how to escape. The moment both of our kids could climb, baby proofing the rest of the house became a more serious endeavor.
Lock Cabinets and Drawers
The thought of locking every drawer and cabinet in the house in order to feel like we’ve adequately baby proofed, was overwhelming. We have a ton of cabinets and drawers, so we really had to be thoughtful about which ones needed to be locked and which were ok to leave as they were. We decided that every cabinet in our kitchen and bathrooms that were within reach for our children should be locked because there is a higher likelihood that there are potentially dangerous things, such as sharp objects or cleaning supplies, stocked in these areas. We used generic U-shaped cabinet locks with any cabinet with knob handles. Unfortunately, the ones that we purchased are no longer available, but there are plenty of similarly designed products on Amazon at reasonable prices. We also used the Safety 1st magnetic locks on most of our kitchen drawers. I will say, if you can swing it financially, the magnetic locks were my favorite because you can have a baby proof home without the look of a baby proof home.
To Corner Protect or Not to Corner Protect
If I thought deciding on which cabinets to lock was overwhelming, imagine how I felt when it came to corner protectors. Everywhere you look, there’s a corner! There’s no way you would be able to cover every corner. And if you could, would it be practical? Not to mention, if you are trying to baby proof in a way that your home doesn’t look baby proofed, corner protectors do have a way of looking pretty obvious. In order to save money on corner protectors and our sanity, instead we decided to only cover corners in areas that are more likely to have accidents. We also temporarily put furniture with sharper corners away from areas that we hang out in the most. Some examples of areas that we use corner protectors are on the corners of a display that is located above one of the couches in our office, in the case that one of our kids decides to try to jump on the couch, thus potentially bumping their heads on a corner. And an example of putting away furniture is how we store away our Transformer Dining Room Table when not in use. Though it is a beautiful piece of furniture, it does have hard corners, so we keep it condensed and put it against a wall that the kids typically don’t play by a lot. We also just keep doors locked to rooms that are not well baby proofed. It’s not that we never let our kids go in any of the other rooms, it just ensures that they are not playing alone in a room that is not baby proofed.
Anchoring Large Furniture
It’s probably not a bad idea to anchor any large furniture to the wall, even if you don’t have kids. I’m sure that doing so would be useful in the case of an earthquake. But, it becomes even more of a good idea once you have a child. Babies and toddlers love to explore and sometimes climb, resulting in some big accidental injuries. That’s why mounting furniture like bookshelves, dressers, or even properly mounting flat screen tvs to the wall can be so important during the early years.
Light Switch Protectors
I actually don’t think I was bothered too much when my kids got tall enough to reach the light switches and started messing with the lights. After the novelty wore off, they eventually stopped turning the lights on and off on their own. What concerned me the most were the light switches that were not actually connected to a light bulb. For example, I was worried about our children playing with the light switch that turns on our gas fireplace. This is when having wall switch covers came in super handy.
Kitchen Safety Ideas
We have an open concept layout connecting the kitchen to our living room space where we spend most of our time. As much as I love having a kitchen that overlooks the living room, it was kind of stressful knowing that my kids, during their toddler stages, had open access to the kitchen. A kitchen is full of things that can cause injury to an adult, let alone a child. As I mentioned earlier, we did find ways to lock up cabinets and drawers that had sharp or dangerous objects. I also utilized Safety 1st stove top knob covers to create a barrier for my kids from messing with the gas stove. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the perfect oven lock for our specific oven. Nothing fit quite right. And the way our house was designed made it almost impossible to gate off the kitchen. So, I needed to temporarily get creative with my baking schedule. In most cases, I saved baking for after my kids’ bedtime or during a time where there were 2 adults present to keep an eye on the children while one parent was cooking. I also utilized our mini counter top oven quite a bit because it was just big enough to heat up or bake food for our small family, but could conveniently sit on the top of our counter where our small children couldn’t reach it. Though there are plenty of these kinds of countertop ovens on the market, we love our Breville oven and hope it lasts forever!
Use Your Top Shelf
Our pantry remained open, but anything that I considered a potential hazard, such as medicine or vitamins, were kept on the very top shelf. This shelf can be reserved for anything that you may feel uncomfortable having within reach of your children, such as choking hazard snacks and so on. The best part about this baby proofing idea is that it cost nothing at all. Just remember, when in doubt, put it on the top shelf.
Outlet Protectors
We decided that it would be a good idea to cover all of our outlets. I mean, why not? Outlet covers are affordable and come in a large quantity. Could our kids figure out how to remove them? Yes, they did. But, having outlet covers slowed them down enough for us to stop them and continue to let them know that outlets were not to be played with.
Baby proofing our home took a lot of work, but I like to think that it was all for a reason that was worth it. Accidents happen, but why not try to prevent some of the big ones if you are able to? I know every home is different and baby proofing needs may differ per family, but hopefully this post gives you some good ideas to implement in your home in your research for the best baby proofIng ideas.
