Baby Proofing Our House
Baby brother has started rolling and he is working on crawling. So, it's time to baby proof the house. Not only are we doing this now so we're ready when he actually starts crawling, but also prepping things early helps this neurodivergent household get used to all the new things we need to be doing before it's officially necessary. Let's round up the baby proofing items we are using!
Baby Proofing Our House | Stairs
We have two sets of stairs in our house and because both my husband and I work from home, I didn't want gates we would have to move around a lot. I decided to go with retractable gates. I did have to screw the one on the bottom of the stairs on the first floor to the post, which is not ideal, but baby going up and down the stairs unsupervised is even less ideal, so I decided to just to go ahead and do it. What I really like about this specific retractable gate is that it has spacers so you can make sure everything is leveled out. It also has a lock at the top so once everything is pulled all the way out and hooked into place, you can lock the gate and it's not going to come undone.
Installation was pretty easy. I had to use drywall anchors for the hooks because there wasn't a stud where I needed it to go, but I made it work. For the top of these stairs, I knew I didn't want the gate right at the top of the stairs for a lot of reasons. So, I actually did it from the middle of the wall at the top of the stairs over to a wall that goes perpendicular to it. That way the mirror area at the top of the stairs is clear and he really doesn't need to be in that space unsupervised anyway.
Moving on, we don't need a gate at the bottom of our second set of stairs because there's a door there so we can just shut the door and put a child lock on the handle when we need to. We do, however, need one at the top of the stairs since the loft area is his bedroom. Because this is more of a loft space, there really wasn't a great place to put the gate, but I did find a good opening that would work, that once again not directly at the top of the stairs but still works.
Baby Proofing Our House | Cabinets
For cabinets, I got locks that can be installed with just the provided command strips so they are very rental friendly. I used these in all of the apartments we lived in when our daughter was little. When we moved out, I removed them and they came off really nicely. I really like this specific set of cabinet locks because it comes with a little template that you put the top piece of the lock onto, and then you can put the lock piece in. Everything just works perfectly and it's really pretty simple once you get the hang of it. These also work really well on drawers. In the kitchen, I put these on every single lower cabinet and drawer except for the very bottom drawer next to the fridge, because that's where the kid's plates and cups are. To open them, you just use this master magnet key and they easily open.
Baby Proofing Our House | Appliances, Toilets and Outlets
I like using the next locks for toilets and appliances. If you have an issue with a kid pulling down a dishwasher or an oven, these will work great as well. They are, again, very renter friendly and SO easy to install. All you have to do is use these specific ones. You just take off the back, apply the sticky side to wherever you want to put it so that you can unlock it really easily.
Lastly, I'm going to be doing the outlet plugs. Baby Jackie did not care about anything I baby proofed EXCEPT for the outlets. She didn't open a single cabinet, she didn't try to play in the toilet, she didn't open appliances, but she did try to stick her finger in every single outlet. While I can already tell that baby brother is very different and is going to try to get into every single thing he possibly can, I have a feeling he's going to go for the outlets too. I just used generic outlet covers that we used for Jackie and put them in any outlet that doesn't have something in it.
Eventually we will get door handle stoppers when we need them, but for now that's it! You can shop anything I used below. Happy baby proofing!
Baby Proofing Our House | Shop
