Baby proofing

[lurker]

Its good to hear all of you young 'ns have not totally abandoned the idea of boundaries.

When my lads were small, the final sanction was a Bloody good thrashing. (As in "do that again and you will get........").
Very rarely delivered however.

We had a discussion a while short ago (both are now mid twenties) and whilst SWMBO & I can remember delivering neither lad can remember receiving. That gives me some satisfaction that we got the balance right.

 

[ste_5150]

Ours won't even go into the garage unless someone's with her - I just won't take the risk with so many sharp things around, so she's had it drummed in since day one.... Actually I have no garage now (just moved..), but the point remains.

As for the original question, we thought about all the baby proofing stuff and decided to only go as far as the stuff that it's really worth doing. You can't take the risk with the sockets or the under-sink-cleaning-products cupboard. As for the rest, well, you have to stop somewhere and they'll never learn unless they get a few bumps and scrapes. For that reason we didn't worry about much else, just kept a close eye out.

They can always find something they shouldn't do/touch/bump in to/fall off/eat if you give them 2 seconds, so as long as it's not too high or poisonous, c'est la vie....

One further piece of advice..... speed dial #1 .... 0845 4647

You will use their services in the next few years :wink:

 

[TrimTheKing]

Its good to hear all of you young 'ns have not totally abandoned the idea of boundaries.

When my lads were small, the final sanction was a Bloody good thrashing. (As in "do that again and you will get........").
Very rarely delivered however.

We had a discussion a while short ago (both are now mid twenties) and whilst SWMBO & I can remember delivering neither lad can remember receiving. That gives me some satisfaction that we got the balance right.

Absolutely agree with all of that, and hopefully I will get the balance right too.

I have long been an advocate of a good slap if required (even before I had a kid). Really winds me up when you see all the do gooders saying how it's assault etc. When I was a nipper I would push the boundaries as far as possible, my Ma would tell me to stop (I will only tell you this once then you will get a slap), if I pushed it I got a slap across the ar$e, rarely committed the same crime again (unless I was feeling particularly cheeky :twisted: ).

My Ma had it spot on, a good, fast open handed slap. The noise factor was more of a shock than the actual slap and didn't really hurt. She also had this trick of slapping my hand, she would hold my hand in the palm of hers and give it an almighty crack of a slap, the noise was amazing. In reality it was her hands slapping together and she hardly even touched me, but the noise was enough to illicit a reaction, usually a cheeky :lol: from me, then a run off and

 

[jedmc571]

I used to get the Belt, when I saw that bad boy coming off my Dads trousers, I knew it was going to be a bad day out

Wouldn't dream of it with my 2 girls, but I have a special voice just for those occasions, and as a former Drill Instructor I know it works :wink:

Jed The Pacifier :lol:

 

[Mrs Oryx]

Plug covers (though Oryx Design and I are rubbish at remembering to put them back in) and a cupboard lock on the sink cupboard are all we have. No, that's not true we have some window restricters in a drawer somewhere. One day we'll fit them - maybe.

Other than that our 1 and 2 year old have some bruises, a healthy respect for gravity and a healthy respect for the naughty step and being told off.

I would like something to stop them opening the oven maybe as long as I could operate it easily.

We have a five foot high slide in the garden that our youngest had for her first birthday. Some friends are horrified when our children climb up on their own, but they can do it, just teach them the first few times to climb safely.

'Better drowned than duffers if not duffers won't drown'

 

[wizer]

One of our daughter's first words was "Hot!" instead of oven. She gives it an exaggerated wide birth.

 

[Smudger]

I've just watched a 1-year old doing her damnedest to get her fingers into a 13 amp socket. She nearly did it (and when I reacted it became a game, of course) and with wet fingers I was genuinely worried. The holes may be small, but so are her fingers.

Out to get the socket guards tomorrow...

 

[frugal]

All we had were baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs and into the kitchen. We also put up a fence around the pond as it was sunk into the ground. If they ever try to play with the plugs we use The Voice. We taught them to open drawers with the handles and close them with the flat of their hands. We have only ever had two hand trapped in drawer situations and we have never had them examining the contents of the cupboards. Chemicals are always kept up high, but that is a legacy of having dogs when I was a kid when we were worried about the dogs getting into them.

We also taught them that they never went near the oven, they stay out of the kitchen when someone is cooking (unless they are helping make biscuits or something). We have a wood burning stove in the living room and they know not to touch that (even in the summer when it is off). They have learnt that fires are hot as we have an open fire at reenactment events, so they respect it. The pond in the new house is raised up 2' and they know that they are not allowed around that side of the house without a grown up. they can easily open the gate between the two sides of the house, but they know that this will result in not being allowed to play in the garden.

we have always used a simple policy: I am going to count to 3, if you do not do 'x' by the time I get to 3 then I will do 'y'. We always tell them what will happen before we start counting. We count evenly at a constant speed and there is no messing about (no 2 and a halfs for instance). They very quickly learnt that we would always do what we threatened to do.

 

[ste_5150]

You know, this threaad has restored my faith in the existance of parenting skills in the British pulblic

All too often you're walking through town (or worse, standing at the school gates to pick kiddo up) and you see some shocking examples of 'parenting'. People who just have no control over their kids, or even just don't seem to care where they are!

It's nice to see a group of people who seem to hold the same values and approaches to bringing up a child (if only to make you confident you're not being too strict :wink: :lol: )

 

[treeturner123]

Reading all these comments, I am amazed that I have reached a relatively ripe age without some terrible disaster befalling me! Like Wizer, I once put my finger in a socket and it did give me a real buzz! I was about 4 or 5. I’m more of the opinion of Cambournepete, wrap everyone up in cotton wool and they have no sense of real danger when it comes along as it surely will!

I never fell down stairs even though when I was small we lived in an Edwardian house with a long, steep staircase. Even very young children have ‘common sense’. I seem to remember seeing as a demonstration, a toddler not crawling out over a drop even when this was covered with glass.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Reading all these comments, I am amazed that I have reached a relatively ripe age without some terrible disaster befalling me! Like Wizer, I once put my finger in a socket and it did give me a real buzz! I was about 4 or 5. I’m more of the opinion of Cambournepete, wrap everyone up in cotton wool and they have no sense of real danger when it comes along as it surely will!

I never fell down stairs even though when I was small we lived in an Edwardian house with a long, steep staircase. Even very young children have ‘common sense’. I seem to remember seeing as a demonstration, a toddler not crawling out over a drop even when this was covered with glass.

I agree with that to a degree, but I have wooden stairs and the baby crawls around in a babygrow sometimes. It's not about common sense on her part, she has no grip on her feet in a babygrow, all it would take is a loss of friction...

 

[ste_5150]

I agree with that to a degree, but I have wooden stairs and the baby crawls around in a babygrow sometimes. It's not about common sense on her part, she has no grip on her feet in a babygrow, all it would take is a loss of friction...

I agree with that point - I'd always put a stair gate up when they're very small. IMHO it's about knowing when to take it down and trust them to know better. And, I suppose, that they're big enough to take the bumps and bruises!! :wink: :lol:

 

[frugal]

I agree with that point - I'd always put a stair gate up when they're very small. IMHO it's about knowing when to take it down and trust them to know better. And, I suppose, that they're big enough to take the bumps and bruises!! :wink: :lol:

A few weeks after we took the bed guard off of the bed of our daughter there was a loud thump one night. we ruhed upstairs to find her curled up asleep on the floor next to the bed. She had obviously fallen out of bed and either not woken up, or not woken up enough to realise that she had fallen out of bed and then gone straight back to sleep.

Now she is five and the thumps are normally her kicking a pile of books off of the bed as she squirms around at night (after we turn off her light and go downstairs, she turns it back on again and gets a bunch of books out to read, and we are not going to discourage her from reading).

 

[dedee]

It's not just your baby you need to consider. Along with the baby with come mother and baby groups and before long the house will be full of a 12 wee ones crawling all over the house. Although I would consider it the responsibility of the parent to look after a baby in someone else's house you would feel pretty bad if a baby did manage to fall down the stairs.

Enjoy the moment, one at a time is easy.

Andy