Christine sent us an email: "Could you ask design conscious parents to post photo examples of their baby-safe living rooms? My husband and I are feeling very challenged in this area since our son became mobile. We've had to remove all our books from the lower half of bookcases. In addition, we no longer have any vases or frames teetering on any of our consoles. Forget decorative candles - straight into the baby's mouth. We'd love to see what others are doing to maintain design and accessories while making the living space safe for infants and toddlers."
(Note: Include a pic of your problem and your question gets posted first. Email questions and pics with QUESTIONS in subject line to: nursery(at)apartmenttherapy(dot)com)
Honestly, the best thing to do is just keep that stuff put away or up on a high shelf until your child is about 4. Otherwise, it's just a never-ending battle. I'm looking forward to the day I get my living area back!
view donnafergie's profile
When our daughter was small, our solution for bookshelves was to pack them super tight so that small fingers couldn't pull anything out. We also used the clear plastic vcr guards as mentioned above. Everything else that was close to being fragile, we moved to above her head, as we were lucky and got a child who didn't pay attention to anything above her eyebrows! There weren't that many things to move, as we have cats, so no teetering decor items on tables to begin with.
view wndl's profile
we were actually babyproofing this past weekend too - its hard. we live in a (very) small space so the living room, inasmuch as there is one, needs to work for everyone, we just moved our stuff over (i.e. higher) and put kid stuff where it was to make a play area. the kid stuff needed a place to live anyways.
a random snapshot from yesterday: http://www.flickr.com/photos/margotmac/477686834/ . those shelves used to be home to our stereo and records (and tv on top - that's still there). we got a rug and now she's loving crawling over there, pulling herself up, and browsing thru her stuff.
that was taken moments before the ugly edge foam stuff was put on. she's safely bumped her head into it approx. a hundred times since. so yeah, its necessary.
any brilliant ideas / solutions would be welcome over here too.
view karey's profile
We just fill the lower shelves with paperbacks. I'm ok with her pulling the books down, it's not dangerous, and she gets bored of it after 5 days of doing it. I have to admit I am guilty of underproofing for fear of the ugliness of baby-proofing thingies. I use several rubberbands to hold my kitchen cabinet handles together so she can't open them. That's the extent of my babyproofing. I'm not a big fan of small breakable item of decoration, so we never have them in the first place to worry about.
view coqueline's profile