Necessary Baby Proofing

I'm looking for some words of advice from BTDT moms. My DD just started to crawl this past week. Yea, DD!!!! Anyway, I am trying to figure out exactly what needs babyproofing. We just ordered a large rug for our living room to cover the wood flooring and a large leather storage ottoman to replace our table.

We were also going to buy fireplace guards. Does anyone have any experience or recs for this?

Should we put some kind of lock on our toilet and all cabinets in the kitchen? I realize that we could kind of see how she does but I thought everyone here would have a ton of insight.

Thanks!!

Message edited 10/4/2009 1:30:55 PM.

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

Hi and congrats to your DD!!!
ok def do the outlets thats a must, put all figurines or any breakables away, as she crawls she will bump into furniture and eventually use it to pull herself up.
you could get the latches for the doors or put any cleaners in a safe spot that she cant get into at all. stove covers, when she pulls herself up she will reach for the knobs. corners on furniture- get those corner foam guards for all points.
hmm trying to think of others, you have the fireplace guarded. if I think of more I will post!

oh the bathroom just keep the door closed, it shouldnt be open anyway with her crawling now.

Message edited 10/4/2009 1:54:06 PM.

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

I got these for our flat screen tvs at bru!

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

you are eventually going to need to baby proof everything so why not nolw. i have a DS that will be two and a DD that is 8 months and she is crawling and she is soo fast that if you turn your head for even a sec she is all the way across the room not to mention that she is trying to get into everything. my opinion is its better to be ssafe than sorry. we keep every door closed so that helps out with the toilet situation but once DS learns how to open the door we are going to need to do that also.

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

When ds started to crawl we did the following:

Outlet covers
Gated area
Moved harmful items out of the bottom cabinets... instead of locking them up we just moved items he could play with to the lower cabinets and moved harmful stuff upwars
Gas Stove knob covers (since he is very tall and that is the first thing he went for)
Cabinet locks on bathroom cabinets

we put the chemicals in the bathroom cabinets which have the locks on and didnt do anything else... to be honest, with the hardwood floors he actually prefers them to the carpeting

we felt the toilet lock is unneccessary.. we just keep the bathroom door closed and he is gated out of that area anyways...

we opted not to use the corner guards because it will destroy the furniture and he is just as likely to hit his head anywhere else on the furniture (my cousins son did the corner guards and he still needed 10 stitches for hitting the middle of the table)

Message edited 10/4/2009 3:20:28 PM.

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

Our thoughts always were just to keep DC out of the hospital. That means outlet covers, tethering tall furniture to the walls, blocking off stairs, and locking away chemicals. Everything else we didn't bother with. The world isn't baby-proofed, so IMO, it's better to teach DC what they can and can't do, so if they are in another house, they will still be relatively safe. If every single corner has a bumper on it, they may run full-tilt into things at a friends house because they've learned that it's OK, and they won't get hurt doing it.

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing

We covered outlets and put cabinet locks on the ones that had stuff I didn't want DD touching (like cleaning products). That was it.

Re: Necessary Baby Proofing