Baby-Proofing: An Ongoing Process

Arm the fortress and prepare the baby gate

By DivineCaroline
Published: Apr 03, 2008

Before her son, Nolan, made his grand appearance into the world, Kate installed baby gates. She wanted her two dogs to get used to them.
Now that Nolan is six weeks old, she has added outlet covers, “despite it not being necessary quite yet.” And she’s planning to do the infamous baby crawl, seeing the world through a crawler’s eyes and uncovering hidden hazards.

Like a lot of moms, Kate sees baby-proofing as an ongoing process, one that would be overwhelming if left undone until Nolan starts crawling, but also a task that is never really finished. As kids get older and more curious, they find more ways to get into trouble. And moms never run out of things to worry about. (Oh my gosh, the TV could topple down on top of him and KILL him!)

Every year, 4.5 million kiddos are treated in emergency rooms for injuries sustained at home, according to Carolina Baby Safe, a company that helps families child-proof their home. The best time to start child-proofing is before your baby crawls. Because those first couple of months can be so exhausting, there’s a good argument to be made for getting started before the baby arrives.

Many online resources will help: I like the Mayo Clinic for being thorough without making me feel like I need to tear my house down and start over. I also found some helpful tips, such as adjusting the temperature on the water heater to 120° F.

Baby stores are anxious to sell you all sorts of gadgets to help you make your home safe for baby. Professionals market themselves as expert baby-proofers. But ultimately baby-proofing isn’t about the stuff you buy or the people you hire. It’s about knowing your child’s habits and predicting where those habits could lead her. It’s about supervising your child even in rooms you think are safe. And it’s about having a good vacuum cleaner and using it often, even though your baby might hate it. (Mine does!)

With my daughter, Celia, we started out by buying a bunch of stuff, such as outlet covers and latches for kitchen cabinets. My husband installed those in short order, but other items proved fiddly. A clamp to hold down the toilet cover was so effective, I couldn’t lift the lid. So that went bye-bye, as did some flimsy foam to attach to the coffee table. Celia pulled it down as fast as her dad attached it.

We ended up with a bag of useless baby-proofing items and the feeling that keeping our child safe at home was going to be harder than we thought. We did have some success. Jason safely affixed Celia’s bookcase to the wall, using eye-hooks and cord. Now I can send her to get some books without fear of life-threatening injury. There are also good furniture and TV straps that can be bought at hardware stores that even the profoundly unhandy-around-the-house moms like me can do. One is the TV quake strap. Here’s a good list of furniture wall straps to secure book shelves, dressers, and entertainment centers. A good friend of Parenting editor, Laura Roe Stevens, rushed to the hospital this year when her five-year-old daughter pulled out all the drawers of her mom’s dresser and the heavy antique toppled over her, trapping her underneath.