Baby-Proofing Products We Actually Used with Our 3 Children

Baby-Proofing Products We Actually Used with Our 3 Children

The world of baby-proofing products is a bit overwhelming and after having had three children, we have some experience about which products were actually useful and the many products we didn’t use and didn’t miss at all.

I think the term should be toddler-proofing rather than baby-proofing because babies don’t really do anything that requires special equipment while toddlers are very curious and fast!

• Baby Gates

I’ll start with the most important item for us and I believe it will be for many families. Baby gates! We have lived in two houses and have had a baby gate at the top of the stairs in both homes. We had the choice to put them in a way so that there’s no chance of anyone pushing/ragging the gate over and falling down the stairs so that was a nice bonus – though most baby gates are of course sturdy enough for this to never happen. We have used Lindham baby gates in both our homes and think they’re great! Easy for grown-ups to open but not for young kids.

We have never put a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs as we’ve always had the option to just close the door from the living room to the hallway and have also always been firm about toddlers not being allowed to go up the stairs on their own. This has worked well for us.

• Plug Socket Covers

Another essential for us are plug socket covers and we have these in all exposed and in reach plugs of our house. Again, we’ve always been firm and said that the kids cannot touch the plugs so it’s never been a problem really. I still like to have them for my own peace of mind though and, these days, there are some quite sleek looking ones so they don’t look ugly in your home.

• Corner Guards

We used to have a rectangular living room table that toddling children could fall into and currently have a desk that’s just the right height for our toddler to bash her head on so we used/use corner guards on these items. My favourite ones are these transparent squishy corner protection guards as they’re quite discreet and provide good protection.

Those three are our only baby-proofing products that we find worthwhile. We’ve never had to lock drawers or cupboards and none of our children have ever tried to touch any cleaning products or similar. We’ve always said that certain products are dangerous and that they can’t open certain cupboards and that has been enough.

One thing that we have done though is to attach tall furniture to the walls as recommended by most furniture retailers these days. The girls haven’t tried to climb any bookshelves but it feels good to know that they can’t pull large furniture over.

Something that’s also important to remember is that children love windows and doors. Make sure your windows and doors cannot be opened by your toddler with a chain or similar to keep them safe. If your door only locks and opens with a key, don’t keep the key in the door but somewhere high up that your child can’t reach. Children watch what we do all the time so they’ll definitely know to turn a key or a lock.

When we became foster carers when we lived in our old house, we had to build our fence around the decking with gaps that were less than 10cm and install blind cord safety devices in all our windows too.

Which baby-proofing items did you find useful?