Babyproofing and Simplifying

It has been a busy last two weeks here at Casa Crafty Garden. The Tomato has learned to pull up to stand, crawls like the wind and is even starting cruise on some items in the household. This can only mean one thing…Babyproofingpalooza! I have been working diligently to try to stay one step ahead of her and door knob covers, outlet covers, power strip covers, wire bundlers, door latches, toilet locks and appliance locks have descended upon the house. She has been spending a little more time in the Pack n Play than usual as I work in the room to install gates and creep around on her level to see what she might get in to. She is a very curious baby, so we actually need to babyproof it all instead of waiting to see what she might get into. This has led us to continue to declutter and simplify our existence in order to keep things safe and secure for her.

One area that I knew we needed to address was wires. We are a technological house and so we have some areas in the house that have a bunch of wires that need to be bundled and power strips that need to be covered. There are several different brands out there for babyproofing, but we mostly bought KidCo and Safety 1st items. The KidCo brand power strip cover was super easy to install and keeps everything orderly so that a baby cannot open it and pull cords out to expose outlets.

KidCo Power Strip Cover

For the regular outlets, I ordered the Rhoost brand outlet covers from giggle.com. Rhoost manufactures BPA free plastic outlet covers that you really need to work to get out of the outlet. They are the individual outlet covers, which worked for us.

Rhoost Outlet Covers

Another area that needed our attention was cable wires. We have always been fairly basic about TVs in this house, and by basic, I mean we have one. We’ve only ever had one in the last 12 years of my single life apartment living and coupled home living. Luckily, DH and I enjoy many of the same programs, and I watch my guilty pleasure shows (Bethenny Ever After, Oprah and Martha, to name a few) when he is at work and the Tomato is napping. As an aside, we’re doing“No TV until age 3” with her and it provides a nice, calm existence for everyone when she is awake and active as well as letting us focus on interacting with her. Plus, we like the simplicity of one television. It allows us to watch something together as a couple and it keeps the cable bill low since there is only one connection. The previous few owners of the house had about 5 televisions. So, throughout the house, we had loose cables like these:

Coaxial Cable Wire

Knowing that we didn’t have any TVs attached to these four loose wires, I committed to getting them out by calling our cable provider and asking for a service call. They set up an appointment within two days, sent someone out, she removed the wires from both inside and outside the house and filled in the holes with silicone. Excellent! No more worries for mama on this front. The pointy wires at the end of the cables and the cables themselves were gone. Plus, we have committed to living a simple entertainment life by only having the one TV connection.

Another safety precaution in the TV area was to secure the cabinet that the TV is on. This time we used the Safety 1st latch pictured below since this cabinet has two pulls next to each other. By installing this lock, it may eliminate a need for us to get a DVD cover and I like this style latch because it has the display to show you that it is locked.

Safety 1st Cabinet Latch

We have a few more things to do in the living room to finish babyproofing. As we wrap it up, I will post some more tips and pictures of what we have done and why. Next up will be anchoring the flat screen TV, installing magnetic drawer latches and anchoring some furniture to the walls. We have a climbing Tomato and we’re going to be super cautious about what can tip or fall if she pulls up on them.