Thoughts on Baby-Proofing
Sunday, July 22, 2007

Scout is not mobile yet, but DH and I have been thinking more and more about ways we can baby-proof our house. But I'm not really sure HOW baby-proof to make our home. My mom said that she never put things of value out of reach and refused to rearrange the whole house for us kids because she believed in TEACHING US what things we could and could not touch. She told me that one of the worst things a parent can do is make a house completely baby-friendly because the child will never learn that there are certain things they should not play with. In which case, everything is fair game in the child's home environment, but if they visit another home, everything is NOT fair game and they can't understand that. The child will then go about, tearing everything up because they don't understand that certain things are off-limits. That seems logical to me.

BUT I want my house to be safe.....and I admit that I'd rather not have to follow an inch behind my toddling little girl 24 hours a day, redirecting her every move as she gets close to things that are a "no-no". Is that a lazy attitude on my part?

Here is my idea: There is a room between our kitchen and entryway that used to be our dining room. We've actually been using it as a second living room, since we have a kitchen table and having a dining room seemed like a waste of space. I would like to put swinging baby gates at each doorway and make that room a child-safe play area for Scout. It would be perfect because it is a centrally located room: I could keep an eye on her while I am cooking and I could also see her from my bedroom door if I'm folding laundry, making the bed, etc. I would also like to be able to sit at my computer and watch her while she plays (I'm planning on selling records on eBay once again), so I moved my computer desk into that 'play' room. There are no cords dangling from my computer desk - just one big fat cord plugged into the wall that leads to the surge-protector/power strip on top of my desk. I'd like to find a way to make that one cord and outlet completely off limits, so there is really nothing dangerous at all in the play room.

Sort of off-topic, but I am in the process of removing all harsh chemical household cleaners from my house and replacing them with natural cleaning supplies like baking soda and vinegar. It's not so much that I'm worried about Scout getting her hands on a bottle of cleaner (I could always move them all to a high shelf), but I suddenly don't like the idea of spraying weird chemicals in our house. I guess having a set of new tiny lungs around has just made me more aware of things like that. There was a point about 4 years ago that we had no chemical cleansers in our home.....I'm not sure how I slowly got away from that.

The room we call "the media room" (where my computer used to be) is certainly not a safe place for a child to play. DH is a computer technician, so there are usually 5 or 6 dismantled computers sprawled out in there at any given time. The other half of that room contains musical instruments and a few pieces of furniture to sit and watch t.v. or play video games on the big projector screen. (we're really not all that fancy....it's a huge ugly projector from the 80's that was given to us for free!:)

I'm sure there are things in our bedroom that aren't entirely child-safe. There's a clothing rack that could probably be knocked over if tugged on just right. I guess that's all. We just recently acquired a king size mattress and put it on the floor in there, so now we have this big cozy family bed and Scout won't get injured if she rolls off.

There are all sorts of things in the entryway a baby shouldn't play with: a big shelf filled with vinyl record albums, a wobbly book case, a low table with sharp corners that has a lamp and a house plant on it. Of course, the laundry room is no place for a child to play. One tug on the cord attached to the iron, and down it goes. And then there's that giant bucket of detergent sitting on the floor. I can close the laundry room door, no problem....and the bathroom door as well. The kitchen has a tall metal shelf with a HEAVY microwave on top. I will probably see if DH could anchor that to a stud in the wall or something. I plan on getting outlet covers for all the rooms and some locks for the few cupboards that contain things babies shouldn't handle.

So, I guess my plan is to have that one special room where I don't have to keep an eagle-eye on Scout....where I can pretty much relax and know that she is not getting into anything while playing in there, as long as I can poke my head in to check on things frequently. And then the rest of the house will be minimally baby-proofed in comparison.

Does this sound like a decent plan? What are your thoughts on baby-proofing? How has your particular set-up worked for you and why? Does it sound like I'm doing too much or not enough to prepare for her toddlerhood?

Labels: baby-proofing

posted by Unkempt Mommy @ 11:06 PM,

3 Comments:

At Mon Jul 23, 01:41:00 PM CDT, Annika said...: Your approach sounds pretty reasonable and realistic to me. We did not child-proof, per se. He can't get at the electric plugs, and we close the door if a room has dangerous things in it (for a while he was very interested in the toilet, so we just kept the bathroom door closed and he lost interest). We showed him, as soon as he started crawling up the stairs, how to come back down, and as a result have never needed to block off the stairs or be frightened if we go visiting somewhere with stairs. Everything else has been a matter of moving things as needed. The relaxed approach has really worked for us, and I do not follow Sam around at all (though admittedly our apartment is pretty small)
At Tue Jul 24, 10:40:00 PM CDT, Dawn B said...: Yeah, it sounds like you have a keen eye for the things that she could possibly get into. And I like the idea of her having the one room that's absolutely safe. Because we've been living in a small apt. we haven't been able to do that, but I wanted to. Heck, even James' bedroom isn't 100% babyproofed.
I'm kind of in the middle- laid back with the baby proofing, but also I had to have the need to have our apt. as child friendly as possible when I was pregnant. I was so darn tired all of the time that I just made sure to keep him out of reach with things that were off limits. And he's tall, so he can even reach things almost all the way near the middle of the dining room table. LOL
Just keep in mind though, when Scout gets to be older..like James' age (19 months) she may want to follow you around alot and be where you are. LOL But it sounds like you have so much covered already. That's awesome. Heck, James was like 9 months and rolling all around the apt. when I even just began to think about babyproofing. LOL
At Wed Jul 25, 04:48:00 PM CDT, Danielle said...: No baby-proofing per se here but I did put any chemicals high up in the closet and I stored towels under the sink. The rest I just taught Max to stay away from. Like outlets for example..."NO, this is a no" I would say and after a few times he knew...same with everything else.