apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Perhaps one of those strap locks?

http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=261755&cmSource=Search

Okay, I'm sorry if this isn't the most helpful answer, but....

I'd vote for storing baby-safe items in the dresser, and just letting her explore.

This may mean stooping to return stuff to the bottom drawer more often, but chances are that she'll eventually grow bored of emptying it. (Also, if you're lucky, she may go through a "put back in" phase - this is common with toddlers, I think.)

Of course, even better if the bottom drawer items don't really need to be folded and could just be tossed back in.

I understand that my "solution" may not be so ideal, though, if the dresser is filled with things that must be folded, b/c that could get to be a pain to deal with.

We are putting bungee cords around everything lately, we had a bunch in the garage already and we just hook them together to make them longer.

But I agree with baumgak, having a drawer of safe stuff for the little guy to disorder in the baby room and in the kitchen allows me to fold diapers and make dinner in peace.

we also have the malm and our toddler loves emptying it too! its just clothes in there so its not a big deal, i just end up putting his clothes back (i dont bother with folding anymore lol) lately hes not into it as much though. i agree with just keep babysafe things in there and she will get bored of it. we did bolt ours to the wall just to prevent it from falling on him, though he hasnt tried climbing it.

Everything passes... the phase won't last as long as you are afraid it will...

ikea makes drawer locks. i use them and love them because you can't see them from the outside of the cabinet/dresser.

We use these: http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=676&cmSource=CrossSell&relatedProductId=261755&PIPELINE_SESSION_ID=9ef2b887ac12041543f17006aa9e712a

It doesn't matter what kind of dresser it is, those should work. The big concern for safety is the dresser falling forward onto the toddler, which would be very easy to do with all the drawers open. You can always have one exploration drawer and lock the others.

LOL! I love the spycam shot, catching the little one red-handed. So cute.

Assuming the dresser is safely bolted to the wall, as all should be, I would just let her explore. She'll get bored of it pretty soon...

I bet she's happy for a long time emptying the dresser...I'd just let her do it and fix myself a cup of tea.

Ikea furniture include the tether strap to be screwed to the wall in case of tip over. For the drawers, you could look into the Ikea "Patrull" (line of safety hardware) drawer/cabinet locks.

Whatever you do, don't install drawer locks that require screws.

We had the Malm in my daughter's nursery and I had drilled holes in it to put in handles. For months, we couldn't figure out why the room had a weird smell since we knew we had used zero-VOC paint on the walls.

We finally deduced that it had to do with the fact that I drilled into the drawers and released the icky formaldehyde that binds the MDF in the dresser.

Some Googling revealed that others have had this same issue. We wound up getting rid of the Malm completely as a result. And I don't think there will be much MDF furniture for us going forward...we had no idea that this stuff has formaldehyde?