Whether you are traveling and staying in a hotel room or with friends and family or whether you are the host to weary travelers, a child’s safety is always important. Try these 5 DIY childproofing tips help avoid a “nightmare before Christmas.”
Do you have friends and family visiting over the holidays with small children? Are you traveling with small children and worry about them getting into “everything.” If you haven’t saved all your childproofing products from the ghost of Christmas’ past, or you never had a need for them before, but do you know there are several simple and inexpensive steps you can take to keep even the smallest guest safe this holiday visit.
Duct tape and packing tape can be a parent’s best friend. I don’t mean use it on your child, but duct tape, as well as clear packing tape, can save you a lot of time and money when childproofing on the go or at the last minute in your home. Clear packing tape serves as an outlet cover, that isn’t noticeable and is hard to remove. Duct tape works well for wrapping together cords from blinds, computers, electronics or appliances when you may have many of them just “hanging around.”
Band together. Have you seen those great big fat rubber bands in your grocery or home improvement store? The next time you see them pick up a bag. They are not only great for childproofing, because you can use them as a quick fix to cabinet doors without any tools but they have so many other uses too. To secure cabinet or dresser doors simply loop over one handle, twist in the middle and then loop over the other handle. This even works on decorated handles without any damage to the cabinets. Can’t find the bands? That’s okay you can twist the night away with chenille (pipe cleaner) craft stems.
Lock the gate behind you. On item that you may want to go ahead and put a little expense into is a “gate.” Use a spring tension gate over available in plastic or wood, which are easily secured and can be moved from place to place. You can use it in the doorway of the guest bedroom and turn it into an instant play area for your little one. It also helps make sure that children are not wandering around in the middle of the night trying to catch Santa putting presents under the tree. Does your house have stairs? Keep the littlest guest, right where you can see them and leave the older children to climbing up and down the steps.
Pack it up. Do you have many knickknacks and valuables or priceless holiday decorations? Move them to higher “ground” or pack them up for the days when you have tiny tots in the house. That jingle jangle and merry and bright snow globe may be just what little Johnny or Jill may find fun to play with and most probably break.
Santa is the only one that should hit the fireplace hard. Do you have a fireplace? One quick fix is to pull out the duct tape and a long piece of thick foam from the local craft store and tape it around the edges. Cover with a beautiful decorative throw or holiday fleece blanket and not only do you now have additional seating but it softens the blow should anyone be hitting the fireplace too hard.
Hopefully these easy, inexpensive and quick fixes to both the home or hotel room during the holidays will keep even the smallest guest saying “Ho, ho, ho!” instead of parents saying “Oh No, No, No!”
John says
Thank you for the great tips! We’re going to our grandparents’ house for Christmas but as we have an inquisitive child, we want to childproof the house. your tips will definitely help to do that. I’ll just tape everything. 😀
By the way, we also used rubber bands to secure cabinets. Great money saving hack
Lisa Carey says
It’s amazing what a roll of duct tape can accomplish! 🙂
Zar Santos says
We started welcoming relatives in the house for the holidays and that includes my cousins who are toddlers and we soooo need these childproofing tips! Thank you for sharing these. Happy holidays! 🙂
Lisa Carey says
Happy Holidays to you too! Childproofing can be so expensive. These tips should help save a little time and money. Nothing beats keeping an eye on the wee ones but in a new place there are so many things to keep an eye out for! I hope it helps your family enjoy the holiday season.
shan says
Thanks for this amazing tips! Your tips will help me out a lot.
Lisa Carey says
You are very welcome! Thank you for stopping by.