Crawling / Child Proofing

[mwelsh214]

We've gotten into this habit of "ignoring" mohamed sometimes (for brief periods of time) because if i interact with him too much, he doesn't do any exploring and doesn't use his skills to get what he wants. Well, Zack and I were talking the other day (doing the ignoring routine) and mohamed was babbling and waving his arms, but we just kept trying not to look at him. Well, he must have had enough of this because he crawled right over to Zack and lifted his arms as if saying "get me! get me!" Anyway, we thought it was a fluke so we put him on the other side of the room and sure enough, he got right up on his knees and did a running crawl to us. To top it off, last night he spotted the TV and all the gadgets that go with it. Which leads me to this question: How much stuff do you have in your house that the baby can get in to....Is everyone just furniture and nothing else? Did you do a baby cage thing?

We have quite a bit of electronics to move, and our computer is down there with all the wires and stuff so that will have to be moved.
Did you all baby proof the kitchen, or just put a gate up? What about for bathrooms, do you just close the door?

Any advice would be appreciated. I just don't want to buy all that stuff for no reason!

~Mari

[moogie]

all we did was buy socket plugs and move some things.  the kids have boxes of crap that they explore but it now looks pretty much like a lounge room.  i was tempted with my first to get a 'cage' but we didn't.  in the kitchen asha can get into the 2 bottom drawers so we just make sure there is nnothing dangerous in there.  but otherwise i'm fine with her being in there unless i'm cooking with oil.  our oven is up high too.  Asha explores the entire house and outside.  She follows Charlie around a lot. i really don't mind her being in the bathroom.  nothing dangerous in there unless the floor is wet and in that case i close the door.  baby gates worked well for our eldest but we don't use them for Asha.

[Lily84]

yep all we did was socket plugs as well. i just moved stuff up high if i didnt want himt o get into it. we dont have any chemicals or anything dangerous in our kitchen or bathroom so i dont mind hiim going around the house. we have one baby gate blocking our stairs.

[wintermaya]

I think the amount of childproofing needed depends on the house, kind of stuff you have and the child.  I have a baby gate for the stairs, outlet plugs and on the cupboard under kitchen sink and bathroom sink have sort of d shaped locks on them. We keep some medicine stuff under bathroom sink so it is needed. When my 4 year old was about 2 we went through a period where we found it temporarily needed to get one of those doorknob covers for the bathroom door so she could not turn the knob.(It had the added amusement of occassionally trapping unsuspecting guests who could not figure out how it worked in the bathroom.)  She started to sneak in there and squeeze the toothpaste, unroll the toilet paper and other naughty, curious stuff mostly early in the morning after she would sneak out of bed.  Other than that I think just some creative rearranging is called for. Our power strips are tucked behind the desk and entertainment center.  I dont have any breakable stuff to speak of that I keep out.

[heathernkids]

I can finally join this conversation since Brinn started to really crawl forward this weekend. The most dangerous thing in my house that I have to watch out for is carpet fuzz. I'm so serious, she wants to eat every piece of fuzz or "whatever" that she touches. It's driving me bonkers.