When did you remove baby proofing products?

[HonoluluMom]

Paranoid mom that I am, when DD started being more mobile, I baby proofed my house so that it's essentially like a maximum security prison for kids. :bag I got gates; bumper guards; outlet guards; tethered dressers, night stands, bookshelves, armoires, TV stands; oven, dishwasher and fridge guards; medicine cabinet locks; drawer locks; door locks; toilet locks; DVR/DVD covers, etc. etc.

Just wondering, when did you take everything down?

[veronica]

when they are in college:ROTFLMAO:

seriously though, if it doesn't bother anyone, keep it. My kids have never played with any thing dangerous and we still have it all in place, minus a few magnetic cabinet doors that we broke the closure too.

[mikala]

We've left latches, tethers, outlet covers, etc in place in anticipation of #2 but stopped using gates and latches that aren't necessary for safety between 2-2.5. For example, we no longer lock the garbage can now that we don't have a kid trying to pluck things out of it all the time. I'm no longer paranoid about always closing the bathroom door behind me to keep little hands and faces away from the toilet. We took edge guards down for some painting and never put them back up. I no longer block off stairs unless we have other kids over.

We do continue to lock cabinets that contain household cleaners, medicines, etc. and will for the indefinite future because the risk of little hands getting into them is just too high.

[hillview]

Between 2-3.

[elektra]

I was just wondering the same thing.
DD can now open most baby proof stuff we have, however I still worry about cleaners and chemicals. I feel like she would be tempted to mix them together.
ALthough when I was out of town this week, DH told me that DD went into the garage by herself (our garage is a MAJOR danger zone!) opened the the cabinet to where the dog food is and prepared the dog bowls with food and fed the dogs, all while he was in the shower.
My point is that at almost 5 she can get around as she sees fit so there is probably no point in most of the safety measures we still have in place.

I will never take down any furniture securing stuff though because we need that for earthquakes anyway.

[wellyes]

2.5 but then I had a baby & had to put them all back up. I have no intention of removing the serious locks under the kitchen sink before DD can reach the magnet unlocker thing, kept at OUR head level.

[YouAreTheFocus]

Good question, I had been wondering about the "babyproofing window," but for the opposite reason. Our son is 2.5 and we never babyproofed anything (ok, we have stuff strapped, but we're in EQ territory!). In all honesty he has never tried to mess with anything--never touched an outlet, never opened the toilet, never opened a drawer/cabinet, only opens the garbage to throw stuff out, etc.

Anyways, our experience made me wonder...is it an older age that you really have to worry about this stuff for? I had been thinking maybe they really start getting curious & into stuff as they get older, and we just haven't hit that period yet. ?

[KrisM]

It depends. My youngest is 3.5. We've gotten rid of outlet covers and latches on kitchen cabinets, as they can all do them anyway. We still keep cleaning things high up.

Gates are long gone, as are doorknob covers and padding on tables.

But, furniture is still tethered. No reason to take that off, so it's still there.

[mikala]

Anyways, our experience made me wonder...is it an older age that you really have to worry about this stuff for? I had been thinking maybe they really start getting curious & into stuff as they get older, and we just haven't hit that period yet. ?

My DS is around the same as yours and I've been thinking the same thing. In our house I think the dangers are just changing a bit. He's trying to be a lot more independent and "help" so I'm watching for situations where he could get into trouble while helping. For instance I'm no longer concerned he'll put unknown small objects in his mouth but am concerned he'll try to help himself to his own vitamins.

In some cases I'm moving things he uses down to his level so he doesn't try to climb like a monkey to get them. In other cases we're talking a lot about why we never use scissors, start the microwave, open bathroom cabinets, go outside, etc. without mommy or daddy.

[essnce629]

We moved cross-country soon after DS1 turned 3 and the only "babyproofing" I did at our new place was outlet covers and anchoring tall furniture.

DS2 will be 3 in May and we still have a gate to the kitchen (which he can now climb over) and an extra tall gate on DS1's room (so DS2 can't steal all his stuff). I also have a lock on my oven door and stove knob covers since DS2 still tries to mess with those. I just put a lock on our pantry doors this weekend since DS2 was climbing the kitchen gate and stealing granola bars out of the pantry non-stop (he has an obsession with "bars"). I also plan on putting a lock on our freezer since it's a drawer style and DS2 keeps breaking in and trying to eat dessert for breakfast! Other than that we have outlet covers, power strip covers, furniture anchors, and a toilet paper roll guard in our master bath. Oh, and I put a flip lock up high on our front door since DS2 can unlock the main lock and open the door. It's low enough that DS1 can unlock it.

We stopped using the corner bumper guards and toilet lock when DS2 was 1 1/2.

[AnnieW625]

We still have all our stuff up, but we didn't have a whole lot to actually proof. We did outlet covers, slide locks for the cleaning supplies, toilet roll saver, baby gate in kitchen, and stove knob covers. We tried the oven and fridge latches with DD1 but they didn't work. We still have everything else up. We use rubber bands for the DVD player although DD2 now when she wants to watch something takes them off now and brings them to me. We briefly got rid of the toilet roll saver once DD1 was potty trained, but it came back when DD2 started crawling. We also moved the baby gate from the kitchen to DD1's bedroom door when she was about 2 so she couldn't get out of her room when she was suppose to be sleeping. I need to add some locks to our snack cabinet because our DDs are notorius for trying to get in there.

We have a large tube tv that sits on a tv stand and it must weigh 75 to 100lbs so I never felt the need to strap that. We have an oval shaped coffee table, and no fireplace.

[angiesscripts]

My son is almost 3 and we still have outlet covers and the kitchen sink locked up. Everything else is gone. I'll probably keep them there for many more years, just to be on the safe side.