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With the 3yr old I nanny, I have outlet covers, gates, baby locks, stove covers, etc ONLY because I didnt know if he would try any of that stuff- he hasnt, so i could take it off, but i havent.
Exactly. I "love" all those condescending posts about the good old days...point is kids who didn't survive their childhood aren't on here writing about it. It's easy to wave it off as "$hit happens' - until it's your child that it happens to
That's exactly right! We ended putting the covers in the outlets. We already had them anyway and it was one less thing I had to find a place for.
Thanks Meyerland! I was always thinking it was to prevent them from putting knives and/or forks in the outlets. I never even though of paperclips I feel better about putting them in now
I remember when I was a little one (not sure how old I was) but I stuck a fork in the electrical outlet. That was the last time I ever put anything near an outlet that shouldn't be there
Aside from putting up gates by the steps when they were babies, I never baby-proofed beyond that.
But, the point is that some children did die. In fact, many more children did die or were injured.
I survived unscathed too, but I knew others that did not.
My 9 year old cousin, drowned in a stream, in front of all of his siblings when they were walking home from school. Someone threw his notebook in the water (as a joke) and he jumped in to get it and no one knew how to swim.
Another cousin suffered permanent brain damage after hiding in an old refrigerator while playing Hide & Go Seek with his siblings & kids in the neighborhood.
A neighbor (age ten) was paralyzed from the waist down after falling from a tree.
Another neighbor (about 12) drowned in a stream while swimming with his buddies.
Are some parents too over protective? Heck, yes! But, there should be a happy medium.
Imagine a mother with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, just holding their baby in their lap in a car. There weren't car seats back then, so that's how some of them got around. Now we know better, and would be shocked to hear if someone was still doing that. It's all because we're safer now, so there are more of us still around to tell the tales.
Decades from now, it'll be another story. "You put your children in car seats instead of inflatable bio-bubbles? How did any of you survive?!"
All dressers, bookshelves, etc do this. The heavier ones are more deadly. Ikea has just been putting this kit in with its products because it was ahead of the game and concerned about safety/lawsuits.
Our grandson is 3.5 now...
We had outlet covers that were twist able--
You put the plug and twist it to make connection--take the plug out and it reverts to having the plug covered--more time consuming to install and more expensive but so much easier to use...
Now that he is bigger those outlets are still there because they are functional although he doesn't play with the outlets when he is by himself...
Daughter also screwed L braces into wall and to Ikea bookcases she uses for his toys and for his Ikea dresser...we did same thing with pantry we use in kitchen...
Our grandson is just not destructive like some kids
Well mannered and while he can be messy with toys he doesn't mess with things that aren't his...
Also please lock up all medications and toxic cleaning supplies. And if you have a gun, put it in a safe, locked, and unloaded. And if it's a combo lock, change your combo often, because they watch you.
I sometimes wonder how I survived being a child. Back in my day, nobody knew what 'baby proofing' was - let alone did it. Heck I drank out of the outside hose in the summer time. I rode my bike without a helmet - I rode a skateboard without one too... I ran with a stick in my hand and didn't poke my eye out - I fell in the house and hit my head on the corner of the table (that wasn't made of particle board).
I climbed trees, disrupted bee hives, and did a lot more 'dangerous' stuff but I still survived.. I'm wondering how on earth THAT happened....
Nice tangent.
People also used to use leeches for medical treatment and throw the contents of their night jars into open sewers along the roadway.
Nowadays, leeches are routinely used to drain blood from swollen faces, limbs and digits after reconstructive surgery.
They are especially useful when reattaching small parts that contain many blood vessels, like ears, where blood clots can easily form in veins that normally drain blood from tissues. If the clots are severe, the tissues can die -- drowned in the body's own fluid -- because they are deprived of oxygen and other vital nutrients.
- See more at: Maggots and Leeches: Old Medicine is New
It depends a lot on the child. Is he the type who might stick a screwdriver into an outlet just because?
I also agree that heavy objects such as TV's, entertainment center and dressers should be bolted to the wall. I know of a child who died when a TV fell on him and another child who missed being crushed by about 4 inches when he pulled over an entertainment center.
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I feel better about putting them in now 
