Getting into things they shouldn't

I realize this may always happen, but I'm wondering if there are training techniques or if they will learn not to get into certain household items, or if we need to consider removing some of this stuff. Right now they don't have free reign of the house most of the time and I think we've done pretty well with childproofing. The boys are usually confined to the living room and their bedroom most of the day, but then always get some time to run around into our bedroom, the dining room and kitchen in the evenings. Anyway, the things they ALWAYS seem to gravitate toward: a floor lamp in the living room (they once pulled this over and almost pull it over at least once a day), the fireplace (we never use it anymore, but it can't be moved), the night light in their room (pulling it out of the outlet), the diaper pail, the cat food and water dishes, a stick vacuum/dustbuster thing and its cord which are always plugged in. We tell them no, or redirect them or tell them it's icky (like the diaper pail or cat food) but they still seem to go straight for these items whenever they can.

So will they start to lose interest in this stuff? It's not like we're talking about fun toys. It seems like they know these things are "off limits" and so they want to play with them or touch them if they get a chance. And with things like the lamp or fireplace I will see them do it specifically at times when I think they want attention (like when I am holding one boy and the other wants attention too). Any suggestions?

 

I don't know about the other things, but when my girls started to get into the cat food, I showed them how to help. One carries the bowls very carefully while the other scoops food in. This way, they have limited access and tend to leave it alone otherwise. I do have to tell them to get away every now and again, but usually of I say, "Cali doesn't need food right now," they leave it alone.

 

Haha Shera, I could have written your post also... I don't see the fascination with trash cans, diaper pails and things of such nature, but they are so drown to it. I do notice that Max is more naughty than Vanessa - so with 2 boys, I can only imagine how it is for you. The thing is when Vanessa sees Max climbing on the dining table trying to reach the chandelier for instance or things that he's not supposed to be doing - she is doing the same thing 30 seconds later, and they both know it's not allowed but they look at us and smile when we tell them no or redirect them.

We got them a kitchen set for Christmas, hoping it would keep them out of our kitchen - and they love it, and they play with it a lot but they are CLIMBING on it... Good thing we got them a walk in style, that has 3 sides, so at least it's stable and can't fall on them, but they fell off it few times already. We ended up teaching them how to go down, since we can't stop them from climbing on it, and they are doing better since then. Since they love climbing, we also got them 2 yard sets on Craigslists, that are meant to climb on - one is a slide and one is a swing set with a slide - meh, they don't really climb on those, but they RUN OUT OF OUR YARD and into the neighbors' yards or towards the driveway - we are seriously considering putting in a fence because of this, but we aren't sure if it's not going to make things worse when they start climbing on the fence.

So yeah, if anyone has any good solutions, I will be watching this thread . Sorry Shera I am no help here, but I feel your pain .

 

It's pretty typical for the age that all your kiddo's are. #1 they have very little memory. So what you told them today, they may forget tomorrow. #2, it's all stuff that is "not allowed", which makes it taboo and exciting. #3 they are sooooo curious about how things work. Does the cat food taste like our food? Will this lamp fall yet again if I pull on it? How does this diaper pail WORK? I see diapers go in but nothing comes out! They are full of curiosity about everything. Try showing them how things work. As someone said, let them help sometimes. But patience, reiteration, and redirection are your best allies right now. Eventually they'll learn, and those items will lose their appeal to them. At nearly 3, my twins finally have the run of the house, except my big kids room. The twins are fascinated by climbing the kids bunk beds and i don't need an accident off of that, so we still have a gate on our big kids room. The twins unrolled a complete roll of toilet paper in our bathroom 3 times before christmas, because we had just taken the gate off the door and they had free reign in there!! Thankfully it lost it's appeal and they haven't done it since! :lol:

 

We ended up having to remove all of those kinds of things pretty much. I got tired of constantly redirecting them and telling them no and it was much easier just to move things. As for the fireplace, my husband made a cover to go over it so they couldn't get into it. They still get into most of those kinds of things when we go to other people's houses, so I don't see them coming back anytime soon!

 

This is what we had to do. My guys have free reign of the downstairs and we don't spend too much time upstairs since its too exhausting consistently redirecting them (their latest obsession upstairs is their humidifier). The cat food is on the landing to the basement with a cat door, we got rid of the floor lamp after the boys broke it last year when my sister was watching them and switched to a ceiling light, our kitchen chairs are tied together to keep the boys from climbing them, etc. I really want to get a bench for our foyer, but I know the boys are going to constantly be in the baskets, so I'm not sure if its worth the headache!

 

I've been childproofing bit by bit, as they show interest in stuff I don't want them to.

I replaced a floor lamp behind the couch with something more indestructible--I went to Ikea and started shaking and slamming the floor models around, banging them against shelves, whacking the shades, etc. to see which one would work best. Hahahaha!

I replaced our coffee table with ottoman reversible tray/cushion storage cubes--they love pulling themselves up on them, but anything they play with or spill in the tray doesn't go everywhere. And we can hide stuff from them inside!

I leave some cupboards open for them to explore (pots and pans, plastic containers, etc.). And I try to keep a lot of doors closed (eg. bathroom, laundry), despite having latches on things. I have a lock on the fireplace doors, a plexiglass sheet covering the open shelves in the TV stand (DVD player, etc.), removed DH's towering collection of shot glasses (yay for having an excuse!). I don't want to bubble-wrap the house, but I have to be realistic about the monkeys.

My current problem is floor vents. They're obsessed with pulling them up. Velcro didn't work, double-sided tape didn't work. Now I'm using heavy-duty adhesive and screwing them into the hardwood.

The climbing thing terrifies me, though. We have over a dozen high bookcases in our house--it's like a jungle gym for them!

 

About the fireplace, if you don't use it like our house, we use our couch to block the fireplace/fireplace door.
We have been removing the tempting stuff from them. (Some time they listen to our request, but I don't want to risk when I'm busy with one and the other getting into stuff.)
About the stuff we cannot remove like: pushing/climbing on the fence blocking access to the kitchen, TimeOut has been our choice and it's been doable so far.

 

We recently started blocking the fireplace with the coffee table, which has worked pretty well. DH and I were talking last night and I think we're going to just duct tape the vent thing closed which is the most dangerous part. It's a gas fireplace so it doesn't have doors, just a metal screen, but there is a little vent door with sharp edges that you open to ignite it and there are of course wires and things in there that could be dangerous. They don't specifically try to open that door, but I don't want them to discover it either.

 

Let me know when you find the answer, my girls are 21 months and our house is SUPER DUPER baby proofed yet they still find things to get into. They tkae the saftey plugs out of the sockets, they turn the tv off and on, they open doors and take out the vaccum!!!! and when we go to friends hosues its worse like cat and dog bowls, trash cans etc. wish you good luck, and the only thing that works sometimes for me, is i try not to say no too much i try to re-direct, lets not do that, lets put this puzzle together instead and i find that works better than no. when i say no they usually laugh and do it again!