One Toddler = No Real Need to Babyproof

We just got home from my nieces son's 2nd birthday party. I'm exhusted from chasing the boys around trying to prevent them from getting into things. There was:

No toilet lock
No toilet paper lock
No door knob lock
No stove lock
No fridge lock
No cabinet or drawer locks in the bathroom or kitchen (except the cabinet under the kitchen sink)
Computer out in the open in the living room

She said with just one, it's just easier to redirect instead of putting locks on everything. I can't imagine what my house would look like if I had none of the above items. :lol:

She is going to buy a fridge lock because he woke up yesterday morning before everyone else and went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out his birthday cake and smeared it all over his body and the walls. :rofl: Needless to say, she had to make a special trip to the store to buy a new cake for the party.

 

i never had any problems with the fridge :rofl: i have always had cabinet and door locks though

 

aaahahahaaaaaa

serves her right for being all "redirect" and not "prevent"

 

That sounds just like our house, except we do have locks on our front and basement door knobs and on the cabinet with the cleaners, plastic bags, etc. in it.

We must just be lucky - but our boys just don't get into those things. :tomato: The first few times they did, we'd redirect them to something different and they pretty much leave all of those areas totally alone.

For us, it seems like the things that are always "off limits" are the areas that they are far more interested in. So, if I do forget to lock the cabinet with the cleaners - they immediately notice and go right for it whereas the other cabinets they don't even pay any attention to them. I do close the bathroom doors b/c they have found out how fun it is to unroll the toilet paper - and I have this fear of them drowning in the toilet.

 

:tomato: The only locks we have in our house is cabinet and drawer locks :tomato: We have a wall oven, so they are not interested in it. Their only interest in the fridge so far is making sure they shut the door for us, we do lock the door leading to downstairs and the closet door because they would just open and shut those doors all the time, and our bathrooms are on different floors so they don't have much access to them.

 

I don't have any of that stuff either, except for the cabinet locks. Like Jori said, the couple times they did show interest in those things, I just redirected and it hasn't been a problem since.

 

:rofl: I love the cake smearing!! :rofl:

We only have the cabinet locks and door handle things... my two have been pretty good about not getting into those things. :good:

 

I guess I have very curious boys. No matter what house we go to, they go directly to kitchen cabinets & drawers. The only reason I have the toilet/paper locks is because with it only being me, when I give them a bath upstairs and one wants to get out, I'm left with a roaming toddler in the bathroom. My bathroom downstairs is lock free, but I always leave that door closed.

Like everything else, this is just a phase, and I will be glad when I won't have to worry about them getting into things.

 

All we have is outlet covers, we have a walk through gate to the kitchen so they can't get in there, and we have a walk through gate in our hall leading to the bathrooms/bedrooms. They are only allowed in their playroom, living room, dining room since the gates block everything else off. We do have cabinet locks for our built ins in the livingroom, but my son figured out how to open them, so I am thinking about bidding on some tot locks on ebay.

 

Same here. But we don't have locks on doors (yet) b/c they haven't figured them out yet. They do love to close all kinds of doors though! When we go to someone elses house they go right for lamps and pictures on tables. Those are things they don't have access to at our house. My laptop is always out and they know better than to touch it.

I will start researching the best fridge lock now after hearing that story!

 

We only have cabinet locks and outlet covers. They haven't figured out how to open regular doors yet. We do not have any breakable things like pictures or other stuff within their reach. My MIL has those decorative glass/ceramic balls at her house and the girls can reach them. At first, they wanted to play with them, but we would redirect them and give them a ball they could play with and it hasn't been a problem since. However, she doesn't have the cabinet locks or anything so we do have to be extra watchful when we are there.

 

We have locks on most everything - fridge, doors, cabinets. With Ella (dd) we had to lock quite a bit of stuff as well, so we didn't add much with the boys. For us, mostly it is just a safety issue. I don't want their exploring to turn into a trip to the ER. If they see me open the oven to put in a dish, they go right behind me and try to do it too. They are my little shadows. They know how to unlock our patio door so we had to buy a new lock. They figured out the door knob covers so we modified them on all doors, especially Ella's room. That is the one room in our house they are really banned from.

And, that cake story is hilarious!

 

I had cabinet locks with the older kids, but nothing else. We moved when the twins were 8 months, and I just have door handle covers in this house, although a large area of it was gated off when they were small.

 

The only thing we have are cabinet locks. No toilet/paper locks, no oven or fridge locks. Our front doors have been chained locked ever since the kids were moved into twin beds and could unlock the doors by themselves. Evan knows where he can and cannot go. He is seldom in a different room than me. It is frustrating going to different houses though.

 

I have never put a lock on anything in our house except the cabinet with the cleaning supplies and our computer has always been out in the open. I have never even heard of toilet paper locks. really??? Are they real??

I think it is just two different parenting styles and has nothing to do with twins, singletons, triplets or whatever.
I have always been of the belief that redirection is harder at first but pays off better in the long run. When we go to friends or families houses I don't have to worry if things are baby-proofed as it is no different that at home.
Oh yea, we did havour outlet covers with our first DD but gave up on those quite quickly.

 

For now we don't really have locks but we keep them only in baby proof areas when we know we can't keep an eye on them (and by that I mean really 'look at them every single second'.

Accidents happen too fast... Personally I'd rather have a toddler with less freedom than ending in the ER. It's hard enough as it is to go to the bathroom so I don't want to make it harder by letting them free in non baby proof areas.

Your niece is lucky her kid didn't get into the knives drawer.

 

We had exactly 3 cabinet locks. One on the cereal cabinet, one on the diaper cabinet and one on the cleaning cabinet. The first two were to limit the mess from dumping diapers and cereal, and the third for safety. I found that the more I locked up, the more they wanted to explore those things. Outlet covers, I never used because the only time they would even notice an outlet was when it had a cover! Oh yeah, I did use a fridge lock, but that was because my fridge didn't close completely, and I needed the lock to keep it sealed.

Like PPers, I found not childproofing more than absolutely necessary made it easier to go to friend houses. To your kids, those places are great because they are no-no's at home, so more attractive.