Man vs. Child...

[rjwaldren]

The boy decided to walk a few days ago... And promptly launched an attack on everything he can get to.

The only childproofing I had done to this point is covering the corners of the brick fireplace with black foam pipe insulation - That's gone. I spent part of yesterday installing the cabinet locks in the kitchen. This morning he's pissed, what opened yesterday won't today. But he just moves on to something new.

Our previous house was easy to safe from my daughter - It was a much more closed floor plan. My thoughts here were to safe things as the need arose. - Now I can't keep up.

This morning I stripped the trim off the laundry door to fix the builders crappy install of the door. 1" open all around the casing and no shims at all. The gap was so great that he could push it open. It looks like the only thing holding the casing in place was the 100+ 3" brads used to secure the trim. It will be hard to make it look right since the trim need to shift a bit and they used a combo of caulk and gobbing on paint to seal the trim to the walls.

Now I have the casing where he can't get through the door. The tools had to be put up, he's trying to help by "distressing" the walls with a hammer, so the trim will have to wait. For now we'll make a trip out to Grandma's to get the picket fence I built to keep my daughter away from their wood burning stove and later I'll get the child gate out of the attic (really hate putting holes in cabinets).

I had really hoped to wait on a lot of these things until we were ready to paint and had the flooring replaced but he's not working with me.

[crokett]

Wow. And I thought my youngest was trouble. Something that may help - create some areas that he can destroy and teach him those are his. Rearrange your kitchen so that all the plasticware is down in one or two of the lower cabinets. Then make those 'his'. You will have to clean up a thousand and one bowls every night but the mess is more or less contained. It worked with our daughter - once she learned she could destroy those two cabinets she stopped trying to get into the others.

[rjwaldren]

My oldest is the real trouble - last night when he found the secured cabinets she went through showing him the ones I hadn't done yet. He's really just exploring and is much more mild mannered than his older sister - I refer to her birth as nuclear winter. But he's also much stronger than she was at 10 months old.

[Shep]

I agree with what David said. Move the plastif things to an easy to reach cabinet. Our 15 month old is they same way. She gets into anything she can and throws a fuss if she doesn't get it her way. Giving her the plastic areas was great. Now she usually takes 2-3 things out, plays with them a while, then takes off to do something else. I don't bend the rules too often, which helps. She now knows that she can't fuss for no reason. If she does, I don't give her any special attention and she stops.

Have fun.

[Kristofor]

Oh man, I feel for you. We're fighting our child's exploits now too..

The childproof lower cabinet doors lasted for about 2 months for the first ones (the latches) and maybe 2 weeks for the second (loops) before he figured out how to defeat them both by ~13mo. old.

Now at 17 months he does pull-ups where he lifts his whole body off the floor (pull a drawer or door out enough to get his fingers around it) so he can survey the counters. He can't see them from the ground but he can reach the first 4-5" so he does the pull-up deal, finds what he wants (to make a mess with) drops to the floor walks over to the right spot and grabs it blind. Annoying, but probably a good developmental activity?

[jking]

Oh the joys of parenting.

+1 to the plasticware. Eventually, most kids give up on the cabinets that are locked & move on to the one or two they can get into. Plastic containers can keep a kid occupied for quite a while (sometimes). A couple of months ago, our youngest (13 months at the time) figured out that some of the plasticware nested. I came home from work & he was sitting on the floor happily nesting & un-nesting plastic bowls.

We also found that each kid gets into different things. For whatever reason, we didn't have much trouble with our oldest getting into the drawers with the kitchen towels and plastic wrap. We kept things in the bottom drawer for him to play with & he was fine with it. Our youngest wouldn't leave the two drawers above it alone. I had to lock those down.

Good luck with the little explorer.

[LinuxRandal]

There is a reason, a rubber room isn't just for the mentally unbalanced.


My sisters third youngest, climbed over a "childproof" gate, went down the basement stairs, and had got up onto the basement kitchen (two kitchen house, w/pool) counters at her old house. She was able to get the "childproof" drawer open, and was grabing a knife, when my sister woke up to hear utensils hitting the floor. She was two if I remember right (and a COMPLETE terror).

[shoottx]

After reading all of that I am glad I am the crazy uncle!

[BobSch]

After reading all of that I am glad I am the crazy uncle!

Me too. Being an uncle is as close to parenting as I'm willing to get.

(As far as the crazy part is concerned — I'm into WW, 'nuff said.)

[jking]

There is a reason, a rubber room isn't just for the mentally unbalanced.


My sisters third youngest, climbed over a "childproof" gate, went down the basement stairs, and had got up onto the basement kitchen (two kitchen house, w/pool) counters at her old house. She was able to get the "childproof" drawer open, and was grabing a knife, when my sister woke up to hear utensils hitting the floor. She was two if I remember right (and a COMPLETE terror).

IIRC, they do make drawer/door latches that are released by a magnet. You have a piece the gets recessed into the drawer/door from the back side & to release the latch, you hold a magnetic tool over this area. They are quite a bit more expensive than the plastic bar-type locks, but, for a child that is able to defeat the other types of locks this would be the answer.

[pierhogunn]

+2 on jking's suggestion of the "tot-lock" type cabinet closures

they come with a template that makes the installation a little easier

1 word of caution, it's real easy to drill too deep into the back of the cabinet DAMHIK, so be careful, or once you find the sweet spot on depth, put a drill stop collar on the bit and you will have a much easier time on making your cabinets invulnerable

also, buy the whole kits, and not just the locks, you will never find that having more than one magnetic key in each room is a waste (DAMHIK again)

I do feel your pain on putting holes in things, I will eventually have to learn the fine art of matching wood filler and grain pattern to hide the holes I had to drill into my newel posts to attach my child gates...

Good luck

[rjwaldren]

Well 2 day in and he can get through the latches 1 out 3 tries...His stats will surely improve... So we'll probably have to go the magnet route. Emily is a terror but not nearly as mechanically clever.

On the the other side - my 5 year old is now completely unable to get to the trash can - so she claims. If we could just get her to pick up after herself and NOT pick him up he'd be much safer. Last week the Dr had superglue his nose from a flying less big sister gave him.