A Few Tips for Baby Proofing Your Home

When our first child was born, my wife and I visited a local company that specialized in baby proofing products and devices for the home. The consultants there made great suggestions and recommended a number of products that were not only reliable but actually “safer” than most common brands. The company is no longer in business, but we kept many of the devices in place since we knew we were going to have another child some day.

I remember speaking with the baby proofing consultants. If I had implemented everything they recommended, I could easily have spent thousands of dollars to completely baby proof our house. But my bank account and common sense told me that I only really needed to focus on the areas of the house where the baby would spend the most time.

Since we spend most of our time in the family room, that’s the room that got the most focus. The glass coffee table had to go. I put rubber bumpers around the fireplace and glass TV stand and used plastic plugs in all the open electrical outlets. Other than that, we put away breakable or fragile items, installed cabinet locks in the kitchen and bathrooms, and made sure the nursery had similar precautions installed. We also moved any furniture that a baby could possibly tip over onto himself.

Since our second child is now walking, we have been revisiting my baby proofing, and I recently ran across Baby-Safe Beanbag Coffee Tables via West Elm on the Coochinoos site.

At first glance these tables looked very inviting, but the cost caused me to think twice. The tables would be safer than a wooden or plastic coffee table for anyone with a walking infant in the house. But the downside would be that you couldn’t put anything on one of them. All it would take is one bump from the baby and your items would go flying off onto the floor.

So I highly recommend that parents use common sense and find products or devices that will work for their own family situation. They should also consider the habits of their own infant. Our first born never really got into anything we proofed for him, but our second child has a mission to touch any and every thing he sees.

Look around, do your own research. Visit other families with children and see what works for them. Below are a few websites that I found helpful and you might, too.

Baby Proofing Tips
http://www.seriousaccidents.com/legal-articles/baby-proofing-tips.php

How to Baby Proof Your Home for the first 12 Months
http://www.parenthood.com/article-topics/article-topics.php?Article_ID=2122

Childproofing Your Home – 12 Safety Devices to Protect Your Children
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/grand/12steps/12steps.html