John's "foil the climbing toddler" babyproofing:
My first son was very tall as a toddler and an excellent climber. Whenever he was being 'too quiet' we would find him climbing onto the dining room table and often spinning the hanging light above the table. While at Lowes I stumbled upon the answer to our problem. Tie down straps! These are the straps used to secure items in the back of pickup trucks. There is a hook on either end of a flat nylon rope with a ratchet in the middle to pull it tight. My wife thought I was nuts, but I hooked the chairs on opposite sides of the table and pulled the rope tight. Voila! Our son could no longer pull out a chair to climb onto the table. The ratchet made it easy to loosen when we needed to use the chairs and to re-secure. My wife was easily won over to the idea when she realized she no longer needed to worry about our son taking a header off the table. We used them again when our second son reached the climbing age and I have them ready in case our daughter takes up climbing too.
This scores a trifecta as a dad's solution: it was ugly, effective, and required a trip to the hardware store.
We found it simpler to just keep only 2 chairs in the dining room (the twins were still using their high chairs), and when they weren’t in use, we’d put them up on the table. The kids weren’t able to reach the chairs! We got lots of funny looks from visitors, but it worked for us.
I also used tie-down straps for installing the car safety seats:
* I put the seat in place, looped the strap over the seat, and under the car.
* Once I balanced myself on top of the seat (gotta use you’re whole body weight!), I synched the tie-down as tight as I could.
* I climbed out of the car, gave the tie-down another good tug.
* This made it much easier to connect and tighten the LATCH clips, as I could actually see what I was doing instead of fumbling around under the seat while balanced on top.
* Once I was satisfied with the LATCH install, I removed the tie-down, and the seat was as snug as a fire-fighter installed seat.
I love that last sentence. Reminds me of the time my sister cut herself and we were out of bandages. My mom wasn’t around, so my dad duct-taped some gauze to the wound.
We also just pull the chairs away from the table after meals. My daugher loves to climb Anything. She has a little plastic castle from walmart and has figured out how to turn it over so she can use it as a stepstool too. It only gives her about 6 inches, but that for her is a big boost.
My daughter IS a climber. So far we are just pushing the chairs against all the walls, but if she’s like her brothers she will soon learn to push the chairs around. This was a big problem with our second son. I would wake up mornings to the sound of a chair being pushed and find him climbing onto the kitchen counters. So another reason we used the tie-downs was to keep the chairs in the room! Yes, our kids are monkeys!
We had to remove all the child sized chairs and stools when our second child became a climber, but that just encouraged him to find other things to climb. He once climbed up the outside of the stairs in the living room until his head hit the ceiling. Luckily that made him squat down enough so my husband could grab him.
John must be related to my husband, who came up with a similar hack using bungee cords to hold the chairs in place. The bungees were quick to fasten or unfasten and just as ugly as the tie-downs. Unfortunately for him, we had lots of them in the garage, so no trip to the hardware store.
I love your trifecta! Made me laugh out load in a quite office. Will keep this hack in mind as my son enters the climbing stage, but unfortunately for my husband, not trip to hardware store as we already have straps.
I LOVE the trifecta! My wife would contend that all of my projects fit into at least two of the three without exception!
My wife and I train our 16 month old to obey. We dont baby proof our house at all except for gates on stairs. Be consistant and hold your kids to a higher standard. They can do it.
Tim: Hmmm — temperament plays a big part here, I think. I can say from experience that some kids accept training more readily than others, and when it comes to safety, better to err on the side of safety.
Whoa, at first I thought you meant that you strap the *kid* down with the tie-down. Yikes.
As for training, I’ve found that my kiddo generally learns from looking over and seeing me looking terrified . Since I don’t particularly enjoy the terror, we do a lot with gates and bungees and such. She doesn’t seem to be persuaded by words alone.
Pursuaded by words?
Whatever happened to discipline!
Did your parents bungee the whole house together so you wouldnt tear it apart.
Lighten up Tim. We can’t all be super-dad like you…