You’ve got a beautiful house. Full of things like furniture and carpets and kitchen units, some of which you’ve chosen and purchased at great cost.
Well, that’s not how a toddler sees it.
A toddler sees all of that and thinks: ‘can I hit it? Climb it? Leak onto it? Infiltrate it and drink the bleach inside it?’
‘Can I make them lose all hope and give up having nice things?’
But don’t lose hope. Because this is war. And every war has weapons. In this case they’re just relatively cheap, plastic items you can buy from Amazon etc.
Best baby cupboard lock
I remember baby cupboard locks being big, ugly things the colour of hearing aids. Sturdy. Functional. The sort of thing you’d use to detain Hannibal Lecter on a flight.
Well, some of them still are. But one is not.
You have probably seen these invisible locks on Amazon already. You might be weighing them up, judging the cost, wondering if it’s too good to be true.
Well can I just say: they are worth it.
If you have nice furniture, kitchen units, etc, they can babyproof the doors with zero external fixings. You can add a little sticker to tell you where to target, but you don’t have to.
It uses a little magnet to open up. Installation is slightly tricky, as you have to get everything lined up, but it comes with a sort of holster that does it for you. You can use screws, or it comes with super sticky pads which work just fine.
They cost about £25 for 10, so not massively cheap. Then again, you’ll be living with these for years. We’ve also got some cheaper locks on our bathroom cupboard, where we didn’t really care about looks.
These cost ~£15 for 10 on Amazon, which is great value. But I wouldn’t want to be looking at them from the sofa each night.
Invisible locks: highly recommend.
Best stair gate
If your toddler is anything like ours, you will need a stair gate. Maybe some toddlers carefully avoid stairs, or primly bottom-bump down while holding the bannister. If so, well done. Mine has a more Jackass approach, without the global audience.
Now I’m going to surprise you: I’m not sure there is a best stair gate. They’re all fine. I mean, would anyone last long selling a bad stair gate? However, there is one crucial thing you need to bear in mind.
That is: width.
I have this stair gate (three of them in fact).
They all work. They’re black, which is obviously super cool. I’m happy with them. They cost about £30 each on Amazon. However, I did have to buy extenders for one of them on a wider staircase. And that does add up.
So make sure to add this to your calculation when buying. And avoid the mesh ones that pull across like a blind. I am not convinced they will hold an aggressive toddler, you’ll just have to buy twice.
If you want to go high-end, you can get custom stair gates from Etsy, which are obviously the nicest, but cost £80+. I think people buy them for dogs, mainly. But obviously if you plan on keeping your stair on lock until your child’s left home, maybe they’re worth it.
Best child window locks
What’s scarier than a staircase? Answer: a massive open window.
If, like us, you have
1) windows that are reachable, such as bay windows,
2) a child who will probe your defences like Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank redemption
then you need child window locks.
There are a ton of options out there, but I can recommend the ones from BeeGo. They’re big, chunky fellas, but very solid. You stick them onto the frames, and – because they use industrial 3M adhesive – they really aren’t going anywhere.
Granted, they’re not that pretty. I haven’t found a window lock that is. But if you have white PVC (and you probably do) they blend in more or less.
The main thing? They are truly toddler-proof. It takes two hands and a bit of force to open. It can probably foil an adult after a bottle of wine. This is a good benchmark for toddlerproofing, I think.
The alternatives to the BeeGo usually have two attachment points with a wire in-between, and a key. They look fine, and get good reviews. But personally I don’t like the fact that they need a key. You’ll then need to hide the key, find the key, and on and on. A good toddler can work a key. A BeeGo will keep them in Shawshank.
Best baby monitor
There is one baby monitor that rules over all else. That might surprise you. You might have read lists of ‘best baby monitors’, and be juggling various features, price points, etc etc.
Well, those lists of best baby monitors are a nonsense. I know, because I used to work somewhere that wrote them.
There is one best baby monitor. And it is the Vtech VM3254.
It does everything you need. It is reasonably priced. It has good battery life. It has 300m range. It has talkback function, to soothe the child. It doesn’t rely on Wifi, so it’s not a pain in the arse. It has night vision. And it only costs £45.
You do not need to spend more than that on a baby monitor.
I used to see the stats of those ‘best baby monitor’ lists. This one always sold the most. Trust me, this is the best baby monitor.
Weirdly, it’s hard to find except at Argos. Which is perhaps why there might be any debate at all. But there is a similar one on Amazon, if you’d prefer.
Products you don’t need for a baby.
Not exactly babyproofing, but while we’re here:
Changing table: you already have a table. You also have a floor. Eventually you’ll be changing the baby on the table, or the floor, or the bed. Everything will have faeces on it, it makes no difference. Accept it.
Baby bath, or bath seat: the largest piece of useless plastic with the shortest lifespan. The Pacific ocean is full of baby baths, I imagine. You can use your actual bathtub, with less water, and a careful hand under your baby’s neck. (Note: if you don’t have a bathtub then by all means get a baby bath).
Expensive cot or high chair: obviously if you want an expensive cot or high chair, then fine. But don’t be guilt-tripped into it. The Antelop high chairs (£15) and Sniglar cots (£59) from IKEA are perfectly good, and design icons in their own way. Many of Britain’s finest minds were raised in an Antelop cot and an Sniglar cot. Including my own toddler. Although, come to think of it, he does try to jump out of windows.
