How do we determine the right amount of babyproofing?
We have a young one finally starting into the adventure of mobility. It's very exciting, but we know our house has never been babyproofed. It's going to take some work to get it safe.
However, there's lots of different opinions on what level of babyproofing is desirable. Some turn their house into a balloon animal farm of colorful corner protectors, edge protectors, and floor mats. Others appear to believe that if they turn their house into a jailhouse of 3 foot tall baby fences, their child will never get to any dangerous situation. Still others appear to take the Spartan approach of "If the kid survives, they're probably tough enough to be worth raising." Some of them can be spotted adding caltrops to the child's playpen to accelerate the learning process.
Clearly there's a lot of personal opinion as to levels of babyproofing. We're going to have to find our own opinion. However, do you guys have advice on what to look for, both in our child and in ourselves, to figure out whether we have enough babyproofing? What are the best ways to look at the situation we are in at any given moment, and decide whether the house is too unsafe, too obsessively safe, or just right?
I'd love help realizing that I am insane when I carefully foam pad the edges of every page of my daily planner to prevent papercuts. I'd love help noticing that I am negligent before the child decides to see how the wood burning stove tastes (while it is hot, of course -- it's the only time any child would go near a wood burning stove!).
(I choose these two examples as extremes. I have no daily planner, and I have no wood burning stove. So there!)
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One piece of good advice I got at that time was to get down on your hands and knees and look at the world from your toddler's point of view. At that point the dangers start to become more obvious: you realise that the trailing cloth on a table can be pulled, bringing down whatever is on the table. You also discover some things under chairs and tables that really shouldn't go in the mouth.
To explain a bit: I don't think you can usefully talk about "how much" baby-proofing you should do, but you can talk about whether specific measures are worthwhile. Getting a toddler's eye view of the world can help to clarify those questions.
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