Advice on Baby Proofing Cabinets

[mommylamb]

I'm looking for advice on how to best baby proof my kitchen cabinets. The cabinets on the bottom do not have knobs, so I cannot use the kind of fasteners that go around those. I'd rather not drill into the cabinets, but I'm not sure if adhesive locks really work. And, I keep reading that those flimsy latches for inside cabinets are not great. So I'm considering two options
1. getting the magnetic locks
2. buying the knobs that match the upper cabinets and drilling holes in my cabinets to attach them, and then buying the fasteners.

I favor option 1, but my husband favors option 2 (I of course doubt his carpentry skills and I'm afraid we'll have knobs on those cabinets that aren't exactly even).

I'd appreciate feedback from folks who have used the magnetic locks, what brand you recommend, and whether you screwed them into the cabinets or used the adhesive. Or, if there is another option I should consider, I'm open to that too.

Thanks in advance!
Jennifer

[o_mom]

We have the drilled in magnetic locks. If I were you, I would move as much dangerous stuff to upper cabinets as you can. Put things like metal pans and tupperware on the bottom. You should be able to consolidate to only a few doors that need locks that way. That will minimize the drilling. :)

Tot locks are not _hard_, but they take some thought. Really study the directions and use the drill guide they give you to keep from drilling throught the doors.

[mommylamb]

Do you think the Tot Loks by Safety First are better than the ones by Kidco? Or no difference?

[rgors]

In my opinion, the kidco locks are better than safety 1st. We installed the kidco locks but needed another package. I ordered safety 1st by mistake. One look at those locks and I thought, these aren't nearly as good as the kidco. They just seemed so flimsy.

I would go with the magnetic locks, myself. If you would notice mis-aligned knobs, then you would also appreciate the cleaner look of the magnetic locks. Every other mom I've talked to that has magnetic locks loves them. Some cons are that about 5% of the time, the door that you close doesn't "latch" properly. Our locks were meticulously aligned when we installed them so I don't think that's the problem. When you close the door, you can hear it not click, so you just close it again and it works (i.e. clicks) then usually. It's a minor annoyance to me, and depending on your perspective it could be a safety issue ("I thought that cabinet was locked!").

The reason I like the locks is because I feel it is more baby-safe while being adult-friendly, as well as you can't see tacky plastic on the outside knobs. Also, it's easy to get in the habit of carrying a magnet "key" with you as you are prepping dinner in the kitchen, and you get to the point that it's really second nature to use the lock to open the door. I can't see those plastic clippie locks -- either the outside or inside ones -- ever really being a natural movement.

If I were you, I'd buy a starter-set of the magnetic locks (1 key, four locks) and try them out. If you like them, then buy enough to equip all your lower cabinets.

Edited to add: if you change the pulls on your lower cabinets to knobs so you can use plastic locks, you'll also have to patch any old holes (if I understand you correctly on how your cabinets open). That would be a real pain.

[o_mom]

I have not seen the Kidco ones, so I can't really compare. I don't think they even made them when we put these on 4 years ago. We have been very happy with the Safety 1st ones. They hold up to our 3 yo pulling on the doors and have not been a problem to open or close at all.

[WatchingThemGrow]

We LOVE the Kidco Adhesive ones! We installed them 18 (wow! that was fast) months ago. We have 2 keys stored in the kitchen. One is above the sink in the window- kinda in-line with where your right hand can naturally go above the faucet, which makes it really easy to grab and use. The other one is inside an upper cabinet on another well-used set of pan drawers. You can even mount them sideways to work on corner cabinets. Someone has forgotten about one of them and yanked the cabinet hard a time or two, so we had to reapply adhesive once. We used the 3M contact adhesive, which is what we also used to put our door locks on (lever style).

I like these a lot better than ones that allow the door to open a little bit b/c DD can't get it to rattle/make noise while shaking on the doors. She knows she can't get her fingers in there (they are pretty tight), so she really leaves them alone.

[rgors]

Just to clarify, the Kidco ones are adhesive, and if you so choose you can also drill them in (which we chose to do).

[MeISOE]

Just to clarify, the Kidco ones are adhesive, and if you so choose you can also drill them in (which we chose to do).

I was just reading this thread as I am about to have to prof my kitchen too. Just to clarify, can someone post a link to the KidCo locks that everyone seems to recognize? I try to go to my DH with pictures of what I want and tell him that the other moms recommend said product to save the hassel of him buying the cheap/basic version of a product and then discovering why it is so cheap.

Thanks!

[MontrealMum]

We started out with something like this http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2736578 but didn't feel too secure with the cleaning products etc. so we added something that loops over the knobs. However, in the end, we just gated off the kitchen since it's at the end of a long hallway. We don't plan to be here for much longer, but if we were, we'd move the dangerous stuff out of the lower cabinets.