Toddler Proofing

Well, toddler proofing seems to be a bit more difficult than baby proofing.  When Mikey was crawling and just learning to walk we were able to set up the baby prison and slap some outlet covers on and be done with it.  Now that he's got a mind of his own things are proving to be a little more difficult.  Every time we think its taken care of he finds something new to get into or learns some new ninja skills to help him escape our efforts to keep him confined and safe.



I'll start with the kitchen.  We had bought this baby gate to keep Mikey out of the kitchen and out of the entry way.  Our openings are very large and even my favorite baby gates with all the extensions in them wouldn't fit.  The gates must be mounted into the wall and are somewhat difficult to open.  There was no stud in the doorway to the kitchen, so the gate has now been ripped out of the wall twice (and that's while using the wall anchors).  The one by the entry way is still holding strong.  The other problem that I have found with this gate is that the shape allows for easy climbing.  When your child sees everything as a jungle gym this becomes a problem.  If I can find a better gate that's wide enough I would probably not recommend this gate, but it seems to do fine for non-climbers and if its mounted into a stud.  Its opening mechanism is a little bit difficult too, its doable, but we tend to just step over it rather than messing with it.


These are the baby gates that we used at my mom's house which I LOVE!  They are a little on the pricey side, but totally worth it.  We are using this to keep Mikey out of the bathroom and guest room.  I can't say enough good things about these gates.  They are easy to install, easy to move, easy to operate, and I think they look pretty nice as far as baby gates go.  The Tall and Wide gate comes up to about my ribs, it will really be a struggle for Mikey to figure out how to climb this one.  The other one is a bit shorter, but still awesome.  The white one breaks down a little smaller than the Tall and Wide and will fit into a narrower space.



Back to the kitchen.  We don't have knobs or handles on our cabinet doors, so we couldn't use the simple claspy things to secure them, we had to find a more permanent solution.  There are some really nice expensive ones with magnets, but we don't own our home, so I went the cheaper route.  The cabinet locks work really well and are easy for me to open and close.  Brian just screwed them right into the cabinets and they work great.  They also lock open to prevent smashed fingers.  We left one cabinet open and full of fun things for Mikey to play with so that he still feels like he's getting into something.  He has fun and he doesn't break my casserole dishes or steal my strainer!



For now we are able to lock the doors to the outside to keep Mikey from opening them, but the day is fast approaching where he will learn to escape.  I think I want to get an alarm system like the one we had in Washington where the doors beep really loud (and tell you which door it is) when you open it.  I will have to remember to turn it off during naps and bedtime though.  I have to research into this a little bit more.

 Mikey started climbing out of his crib a few days ago so it was time to convert his crib to a toddler bed. We bought the crib off Amazon from Sorelle where you can also find the matching toddler rail and full bed conversion kit.  I didn't want to spend $100 on a rail that we will probably not use for all that long so I opted for the Dexbaby Safe Sleeper Convertible Crib Rail.  You don't need tools to install it and I like the look of how it secures.  It has not arrived yet so we currently have a bed of pillows on the floor for if/when he rolls out of bed.  Since our dresser is tall I said that I would not convert the bed until the dresser was secured, so we bought Safety 1st furniture wall straps to secure the dresser.  I read a horrible story about a little girl who tried to climb her dresser and pulled it over onto herself.  Her parents found her in her bedroom beneath the dresser after it was already too late, so PLEASE SECURE YOUR DRESSERS!  You need to make sure the straps are secured into a stud and then you screw them into the back of the dresser.  This way if your monkey child tries to climb the dresser and it tips it will not fall onto them, but rather be caught by the straps.

Converting the crib to the toddler bed did NOT stop Mikey from climbing over the sides.  He saw this as a new and fun game.  Fortunately, he was using a stuffed animal bin to climb the one side so that was easy to remove and stash in his closet.  Once that disappeared it took about 8 seconds for him to figure out that he could climb the shelves on the side of the changing table then jump from the changing table down on the bed.  I thought I was going to have to take my crib apart after 24 hours of it becoming a toddler bed.  Luckily, we had space for the bed on the other side of the room, so we flipped the crib around and pushed the changing table part up against the corner where he did not have access to the shelves.

Since Mikey opens doors and we have lever handles with no locks I bought these bad boys from Amazon to keep him locked away in his room.  We also have one on the media closet to keep him from pulling out all the DVDs every day.



Before we put up the gate to block out the bathroom and guest room I put a toilet lock on so that I didn't have to worry about him playing or drowning in the toilet.  Its pretty nifty, was easy to install, and is pretty easy to work.  It does, however, become increasingly difficult to use if you are doing the pee pee dance!

 Outlet plug covers are in all over the house and things he can climb are mostly collapsed or put out of reach.  Hopefully we can keep him contained for awhile!