In the last month my youngest has gone from a satisfied sitter to a cruising crawler who has his sights set on anything not baby proofed. Tipping hazards and electrical cords were the first items we had to correct in order to get our house back into the mode of baby proofing. While walking our house and taking inventory of what needed to be fixed, I realized that we are lucky to have left much of our baby proofing efforts up from when our oldest started to become mobile.
If you’re in need of baby proofing products here are the best that I have found that have stood the test of time and are worth recommending:
Have a two story house? The Summer Infant Multi-Use Deco Extra Tall Walk-Thru Gate is awesome for ensuring no one goes up or down without your assistance. The gate does require drilling if you’re installing it at the top of the stairs but it has a super strong hold and has totally withstood lots of toddler shaking. The gate features a low profile for stepping over, is super easy to open with one hand, but the closing/opening mechanism is discrete enough that our four year old has still not figured out how to open on his own (and no, we have no plan to teach him how to open it anytime soon!).
How about those bathroom and kitchen cabinets? When we moved into our home it came with some baby proofing already done. Our bathroom cabinets had the very popular push down hooks, which our oldest son watched us open once and was able to mimic so we went to Amazon to find the best locks that would be easy for adults to open and difficult for kids. Low and behold we found Safety First’s Magnetic Locking System. With a little drilling these installed quickly and made our cabinets super secure. We have two of the magnetic keys in our kitchen, up high where little ones cannot reach. The magnets are really easy to use, and in a pinch if you lose one of the keys, you can find any strong magnet and still get your cabinets unlocked. We store our magnetic keys on the paper towel holder and side of the fridge for easy access.
Let’s talk about those pesky wall sockets… Assuming there are 4 outlets in each room, with two plugs per outlet we’re taking 8 wall sockets per room. We have a 3 bedroom house, so with kitchen, dining, living, laundry and bedrooms counted were looking at a minimum of 56 sockets! We looked far and wide to see what products were out there and ended up settling on the simple plastic socket plugs that you can get 36 of for less than $3. They installed in seconds, are clear so they don’t attract the baby to come take a closer look, and are easy for parents to undo but difficult for baby to remove.
Crawling babies turn into towering toddlers who walk around without thinking about the corners of counters jetting out at them. At our house we don’t have too many edges that stick out but our kitchen counters were a huge concern for us. We found these Cushiony Corner Guards by Kinglake that came in a variety of colors and use simple adhesive to stay in place. The best part of using these was the adhesive held in place until we were ready to remove them but didn’t leave a crazy amount of residue. We simply cleaned up the residue with some Method cleaner and our counters were back to normal. The corner guards can be found in multiple colors allowing for you to find a close match to your counters as well.
Last but not least is a baby proofing item I never would have guessed I would nee, Keyless Entry Locks. We installed a keyless entry door knob the day after our kiddo locked me in the garage at 6am. No joke. When our toddler was almost 2 he had just learned to lock doors, but didn’t yet have the dexterity to unlock. I stepped out into the garage to put a diaper in the trash and click- he had locked me out. I ended up having to climb the fence into our backyard and throw a soccer ball at the master bedroom window to wake my husband who somehow was sleeping through the major tearfest our son was having because mommy was outside. Needless to say this is probably one of the best investments we’ve made to our home. And now at age 4 our son even has the code memorized so if for any reason he were to get stuck in our garage he would have the ability to get himself back inside.
While baby proofing takes some time and investment I certainly feel better knowing that my kids can wander most any room in our house safely. How old was your baby when you started baby proofing? Do you have a product that you love that wasn’t mentioned above? Please comment below or share your tips using the hashtag #nphxmoms – we would love to see what else is working for other families!
