# Baby-proofing a house



## Black Dragon (Jul 28, 2011)

Hey guys,

As you may know, I've got a baby daughter who is about to turn one in a few days.  She's rapidly becoming mobile, and is a walking short distances.  This can be enough to scare a new parent shitless.  

Some of you have experience with little kids.  Since this is our first, this is all new to me.  What precautions did you take to baby-proof your home?  For example, did you anchor every piece of furniture to your walls?


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## Ravana (Jul 29, 2011)

I put up an eight-foot-high electrified chain link fence topped with concertina wire, raised the house up on stilts, bought a pair of vicious Dobermans, replaced all the windows with glass block, nailed the doors shut, then caulked thoroughly around them. The only remaining access to the outside are two 3/4'' tubes through which my air is circulated, plus the water and sewer pipes, all of which have sturdy grills across them. If anybody has any suggestions of ways to make my house any more baby-proof than that, please let me know.


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## Map the Dragon (Jul 29, 2011)

Ravana said:


> I put up an eight-foot-high electrified chain link fence topped with concertina wire, raised the house up on stilts, bought a pair of vicious Dobermans, replaced all the windows with glass block, nailed the doors shut, then caulked thoroughly around them. The only remaining access to the outside are two 3/4'' tubes through which my air is circulated, plus the water and sewer pipes, all of which have sturdy grills across them. If anybody has any suggestions of ways to make my house any more baby-proof than that, please let me know.




Do you have teenagers?


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## Kaellpae (Jul 29, 2011)

Ravana said:


> I put up an eight-foot-high electrified chain link fence topped with concertina wire, raised the house up on stilts, bought a pair of vicious Dobermans, replaced all the windows with glass block, nailed the doors shut, then caulked thoroughly around them. The only remaining access to the outside are two 3/4'' tubes through which my air is circulated, plus the water and sewer pipes, all of which have sturdy grills across them. If anybody has any suggestions of ways to make my house any more baby-proof than that, please let me know.



That sounds like it will keep you safe. But you forgot the moat. That's the most important thing.


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## Joe the Gnarled (Aug 1, 2011)

Lol.  Good one Ravana.

I will take a stab at a serious answer.  Most first time parents go to extremes when attempting to "baby proof" their house.  Children are going to hurt themselves.  It is a good way to learn not to repeat that same behavior.  

You do want to make sure they do not kill themselves in the process.  Defiantly plug up your electrical sockets and put chemicals out of reach.  Getting latches for your cabinets is probably more for your sanity than keeping the kid safe.  Pots and pans are fun toys for a baby/toddler and happen to be capable of producing one of the most infernal ruckuses known to man.  If you have stairs she needs to learn to get up and down, but will need supervision, so a gate of some sort would be advisable.  As for anchoring the furniture, unless you have something that is extremely top-heavy and libel to fall over I would not worry about going to this extreme.  

The most important thing that I can think of is to pay attention to what your child is doing.  You will develop a sixth sense for when she is doing something she should not (usually when she is being a little too quiet).  You can drop all the money you want on “baby proofing”, but to be honest there is no such thing.  Kids will find a way.  You just have to look out for them, and don’t forget: She is going to get hurt.  No matter what you do, or how careful you are, she is going to find a way to hurt herself.  Don’t beat yourself up too much.  Eventually she will learn that the wall is hard, the window is filled with an invisible barrier called glass, and the cat is mean.

Oh, and vacuum the floor like crazy.  You will not believe the minuscule things she will find in the carpet.


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## Black Dragon (Aug 2, 2011)

Thanks for the suggestions, Joe.  You sound as if you are speaking from experience.


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## Joe the Gnarled (Aug 2, 2011)

Yes, my daughter is 5 and I have another one on the way.


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## Ravana (Aug 3, 2011)

Kaellpae said:


> That sounds like it will keep you safe. But you forgot the moat. That's the most important thing.



Right now, the moat is what we're going to be paying basement repair guys c. $20k to get _rid_ of… it rained a _lot_ this year.…  

@Map: I neither have nor ever will have any children. I'm glad the responsibility for the continuation of the species doesn't have to fall on me (there seem to be an adequate number of people handling that already). Apart from a couple hereditary conditions I wouldn't want to inflict on anybody I had affection for, I simply do not have the patience: if I had children, I'd kill them. And, no, that is not an exaggeration… I know myself quite well enough to be able to say that with absolute certainty. It was my great good fortune to locate a spouse who felt (approximately) the same way. We have cats. They're much easier to get along with. Even the one that's climbing up my leg at the moment to get me to feed it.  BRB.…


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## Map the Dragon (Aug 3, 2011)

Ravana said:


> Right now, the moat is what we're going to be paying basement repair guys c. $20k to get _rid_ of… it rained a _lot_ this year.…
> 
> @Map: I neither have nor ever will have any children. I'm glad the responsibility for the continuation of the species doesn't have to fall on me (there seem to be an adequate number of people handling that already). Apart from a couple hereditary conditions I wouldn't want to inflict on anybody I had affection for, I simply do not have the patience: if I had children, I'd kill them. And, no, that is not an exaggeration… I know myself quite well enough to be able to say that with absolute certainty. It was my great good fortune to locate a spouse who felt (approximately) the same way. We have cats. They're much easier to get along with. Even the one that's climbing up my leg at the moment to get me to feed it.  BRB.…




Unfortunately, and as we all know, mostly it's the stupid people who are breeding. My cat annoys the hell out of me. I actually hate cats. My cat is Little Man. The SPCA named him Devil Man, which was great and playful as as kitten. They told me stories about how he would hide in the closet of his foster home and climb up the woman's dresses and slide down with his claws. I got him for my girlfriend at the time a little over a decade ago. She and I are no longer together; I got stuck with Little Man, because he hated her and often drew blood. He's more mellow now in his fat old age, but meows with what must be a microphone usually about 30 minutes before I really want to wake up. This will continue till I feed him. 

I do, however, love dogs and my two are great. One of the funniest things though...Little Man will hid behind things and under furniture, and when the 100-lb canines get near, he'll swipe a long arm out like a stealth feline ninja and swat them in the face just before running for cover elsewhere. 


Good luck with the basement moat incident.


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## Behelit (Aug 4, 2011)

I have a nephew who just turned two a month or so ago and observed very much to Joe's experience. The smart little guy, with mere moments without a pair of eyes on him, was very frequently able to dismantle or outright avoid baby-proofing. Silence was VERY often a signal of him getting into or eating something he had no business with. 

I think the main concerns are lethal dangers:

I definitely second plugging of unused outlets.

Cords/wires should be kept out of reach and/or securely hidden. Wouldn't want them to pull anything down onto themselves or get tangled up in a mass of computer/tv/entertainment center wires.

Absolutely soften/get rid of sharp corners.

Deny access to chemicals by any means necessary.

And if you have a pool, I'd definitely put multiple impossibilities between the child and the water. 

Besides baby-proofing and hand-in-hand with attention, try to be as active as possible with your child. Take them out to a park that would be safe to let them burn out a lot of the pent up energy.


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## Donny Bruso (Aug 5, 2011)

I will preface this by saying that I am firmly in Ravana's camp of not having children and not particularly wanting them. However I had the dubious pleasure(pronounced mistake) of dating a girl who had some. 



Behelit said:


> Take them  out to a park that would be safe to let them burn out a lot of the pent  up energy.



I don't know how you manage to make this work on your nephew, but it never did _anything_ on her two year old kid. He'd run around for hours like a freaking demon, crash like a sack of bricks on the ride home from the park/playground, and the fifteen minute nap would completely revive him. I kept trying to get her to let me slip him some rum in his milk to knock him out, but she wouldn't go for it. :\


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