Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Do you find that baby proofing the house is difficult with older children? The devices that hook onto doorknobs are obviously important to restrict the infant, but older children also cannot open them -- is this an issue for you? Or have you had similar issues?
I had a hard time babyproofing the house for my younger daughter. I ended up making her a safe play area in the living room with one of those superyard fences, and she played in there if I was too busy to supervise her. It also kept her big sister and friends from accidentally stepping on her or from taking her toys.
It seemed like my younger daughter needed less babyproofing than her big sister...she didn't put the wrong things in her mouth, she didn't break things, she didn't play in the toilet or unroll all the toilet paper, all the things my older one did.
The big thing was either putting away toys there were choking hazards or making sure they kept them in their room. With Legos, that just didn't work (keeping them in my son's room) because they are small and end up everywhere no matter what. One of my cats has a thing for Legos and would take them from my son's room, so we'd find Legos around the house when we thought they were in his room. And with my youngest venturing around and exploring, we had to stress that they keep small objects out of reach.
So Legos are put up. My son plays with the bigger blocks for now, which he likes because the two of them play together. My older two have other little toys that came with ponies and LPS toys that they keep out of reach or have put up.
I'm not sure how old your oldest is but mine is four and a half and has managed to learn to open every style of baby gate we have and also those doorknob covers that snap on so a baby/toddler can't open them. Also we have talked to the older one about leaving small toys were the baby can get to them and he has been great about keeping them in his room. He even tells us if he see something on the floor that the baby should not have. Our only issue has been the older one doing acrobatics on the furniture which the younger one then tries and usually ends up hurting himself doing!
I didn't baby proof anything with my kids except the door knobs. My oldest is 3 years older than her brother, and she was able to do the child proof door knobs while he couldn't, so she had no issues getting in the pantry or going out the back door. I did not proof the cabinets, I just moved the cleaning supplies into a top cabinet in the kitchen.
Do you find that baby proofing the house is difficult with older children? The devices that hook onto doorknobs are obviously important to restrict the infant, but older children also cannot open them -- is this an issue for you? Or have you had similar issues?
We never did the doorknob thing, we just locked the doors and turned the alarm on. Our older child has to ask to go outside, which she does. Not a problem for us.
So if I couldn't keep an eye on them, they went in the play area. Kept toys from being all over too.
Never used a door knob thing. I don't know, as soon as my kids were walking, they followed me everywhere and I tended to bring them along if I left the room
My kids are 10 years apart - we had a baby safe zone that was basically our cordoned off family room. The poisons etc were up out of reach and the front door had a flip lock the baby could not reach. That was the extent of the baby proofing. Son knew that his small toys (legos, marbles, markers etc) were not allowed in the baby safe zone.
We also had covers over the stove knobs since our house was equipped with natural gas and the knobs were on the front panel of the oven.
We lived in earthquake county when the kids were little, all the big furniture was bolted to the walls and beyond that, we supervised and taught them NO.
Last edited by mamacatnv; 04-11-2016 at 04:31 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
