As a new Mom, I knew that I would need to baby proof a lot of things once Lily started getting mobile.
Now, I know that you actually have to think about every corner of your house and how your baby could possibly hurt themselves on something because it takes 2 seconds, and babies want to get into everything.
At 9 months old, I cannot take my eyes off of her for two seconds unless I know she is strapped into something or safe in her pack-n-play, and she’s not even walking yet!
Using outlet covers and putting up baby gates in doorways are easy things that you pretty much immediately get when baby proofing. I couldn’t believe how as soon as Lily started crawling she went right for the outlets to stick her little finger into it. Luckily, they were covered.
She also runs around in her walker and tries to open our all of our kitchen cabinets. Got those on lock down, too, in the kitchen and bathrooms and any other place where we keep liquids or cleaning supplies. We found great cabinet locks on amazon that are easier than older versions where you pretty much pinch your finger trying to get in the cabinet. ( here is the link!)
Securing furniture to the wall is another big one that I knew we needed to do. We’ve all seen horrific stories about babies that try to climb furniture that topples over on-top of them. So, I am big on making sure anything that can fall over is bolted down or to a stud in the wall…super secure.
There were a few things that I didn’t immediately think of that I think are a good idea to consider baby proofing if you have in your house:
-Tie up blind cords….any type of string, rope or cord should be out of reach.
-Toilets…they make these really cool toilet seat latches so the baby cant lift up the lid. (here is the link!) I have these. My girl is already way too curious to not think about that.
-Outside locks on rooms…I think this is a good idea for when your baby can open doors and you don’t want them to get into certain rooms. You would put the latch high up on the door.
-Curtain rods…the kind that you hang on a rod could be dangerous. I didn’t think about this until I read about it, but the baby could put the whole rod down. They do many curtain rod clips that are safer.
-Sharp corners…I still need to do this on a lot of things. Right now Lily is mainly walking around our coffee table, which is wooden, so you can find me following her around in a circle around the table most of the day. Corner covers work best for any type of sharp corner.
-TVs… make sure the TV is properly mounted if it is a flat screen with anti tipping straps.
…..I know it’s a lot. There are things that I will probably have to consider doing that I haven’t yet, but we all want to keep our babies safe from everything.
<3 Katie Ryan