Baby-Proofing Room By Room, In The Order That Matters

Baby-proofing lists tend to be long enough that people either do nothing or spend a weekend fitting locks on cupboards their baby will not open for another year. It is easier to work in the order your baby unlocks new abilities.

Before they move: anchor the heavy things

This is the one to do early, because it is the one with the worst outcomes and the least warning. Anything tall that can tip goes into the wall: dressers, bookcases, the television, changing units. A drawer pulled out and stood on turns a stable dresser into a lever. Anchor kits come with most furniture now, and the ones that do not cost very little.

Also worth doing now, while you have time: cord out of reach on every blind and curtain, and the crib moved away from windows.

Once they roll and creep: floor level

Get down on your forearms and look along the floor, because that is genuinely a different view. Now you are looking for anything smaller than a toilet roll tube, which is roughly the choking size test. Coins, batteries, magnets, the little plastic pull from a zipper. Button batteries deserve special attention because they cause serious injury quickly, so check remotes, thermometers, scales and greeting cards.

Cover the outlets in the rooms they use, and put a stop on anything that traps fingers: door slam guards on doors that swing shut, and the hinge side of doors is worse than the handle side.

Once they pull to stand: the middle band

A new shelf of the world just became reachable. Coffee table corners, the oven door, tablecloths that can be pulled, hot drinks near the edge of a counter. This is also when stair gates go in, top and bottom. The top of the stairs needs a gate that screws into the wall rather than a pressure fit one.

Kitchen and bathroom cupboards come next. Cleaning products and medication move up high rather than relying on a latch alone.

Once they walk: the whole picture again

Walkers reach handles, so door and window locks matter now. Check the bathroom, because water safety becomes real the moment they can get in there alone. Pets and toddlers both benefit from somewhere the pet can go that the toddler cannot follow.

A note on falls

New walkers fall constantly, and most of it is ordinary. Keep hard edges padded where they practice, keep rugs from sliding, and expect the bumps. If a fall involves a loss of consciousness, vomiting, unusual sleepiness or a fall from a height, call your pediatrician rather than watching and waiting.

Redo it every few months

The single most useful habit is repeating the floor level crawl around every couple of months. What is reachable changes faster than you expect.