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ADVICE RATING

4.80 (Highly recommend) from 10 votes (252 Visits)

Oops, there goes another collector's figurine: Baby proofing on visits to see Grandma

by Kristen

(December 2006) (rank 169th)

Going to someone else's house for a holiday can be a stressful situation if you have toddlers. You should never expect anyone else to "baby-proof" their home but there are ways to make your stay a little less stressful.

Warn ahead. We spent the week
at my inlaws house 2 weeks ago and now we are at my parent's house for a 4 day visit. Every conversation I had with my mother in law and my mom for the 3 weeks before my arrival involved warning them about my destructive son. He means well but his coordination is a little lacking and he seems to gravitate to the most fragile thing in the room and want to touch. I reminded both moms that Ethan is 2 1/2 feet tall and his grasp seems to be about 5 feet. Both advised me repeatedly not to worry and that everything was ready to go.
When you arrive, identify the important (and precious items) and move them out of reach. I spent the first day at my inlaws moving figurines from a 2 foot high ledge to the mantle about the fireplace. While my mother in law said she wasn't worried, I knew she might not feel the same if important things started to break. Ethan managed to go a week without breaking anything and I got lazy. It only took him a day to break a figurine at my parent's house. It was a figurine that he must have picked up 50 times and we told him to put it back gently every time. The odds were against us that we would make it unscathed.
Make sure your toddler knows there are consequences for his actions. In our case, we never actually said, "if you touch it again, this will happen." Not a recommended parenting technique and I knew better. It was a figurine of a baby and he couldn't keep his hands off it. The smart thing would have been to just take the temptation away from him. At a minimum, I should have told him that he would have to go in timeout if he touched it again. He was told not to touch it and then there were no consequences for when he did touch it. He really didn't have any motivation to stay away from it and it was more my fault that he broke the figurine than it was his fault.
Try to convey the importance of "special things" to your child. Different items in your house have different levels of importance. "Special things" are things to be treasured and treated carefully. Just because something is breakable doesn't necessarily mean that your child shouldn't be able to touch it. It's good to have a policy that you can see "special things" if you are sitting in a safe place and an adult brings the pretty figurine to show you.

Learning to be gentle and to treasure special items is an important skill for toddlers to learn. Having the patience and consistency to teach them is a little more difficult. At least it is for me. Hope this can help your holiday stay be a little less stressful this holiday season filled with traveling. Good luck.

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ADVICE RATING

4.80 (Highly recommend) from 10 votes

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	5.00 (Excellent) \| December 2006 \| jenlemen

hehehe

yeah, mom's house is a veritable landmine of breakables! :)
good luck, sistah!

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	December 2006 \| Kristen

hehehe

I just don't remember the 8,000,000 Precious Moments figurines. When did they appear?

The hilarity is that Nana had about 8 BILLION figurines.

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	4.50 (Excellent) \| December 2006 \| angelmum

Stress is a good word

My mum has 16 grandchildren and refuses to child proof her house, and well that should be the case, most of her things are in what we call adult rooms and the kids are off limits, all the kids are told Grandma's things are breakables and are not to be touched. In any other room they are allowed we put everything up high out of reach. But we never really have a problem as we have always told all the kids from the start no don't touch they are breakables. But at the moment with my little one he doesn't understand and loves to go into the Adults room, so I am constantly chasing him. I don't think its up to Grandma or anyone else to child proof, its up to us to ensure and teach our children what they can and cant touch. Good advice

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	4.00 (Good) \| December 2006 \| Kristen

Stress is a good word

The funny thing is that while most of our parents never childproofed for us when we were little, I didn't realize how stressful it was to have to "police" the breakables. There is only so much you explain to a toddler before they start to look at you like you are crazy.

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	5.00 (Excellent) \| December 2006 \| exquisite-flower

Stress is a good word

Somehow I have been lucky with E so far .... the number of friends i visit who have multitude figurines - it is so much dusting! Ah well. maybe one day I will join the ranks, thankfully my parents got rid of most ornaments a long time ago when they moved home, so we are lucky when we go there on that score, it is only the little pebbles in the garden and the candle holders that we have to watch ....
Peace
EF.x

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	December 2006 \| Kristen

Pebbles in the garden

Ethan of course would be eating them... LOL

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