How do your young children reach light switches?

[peg2001]

Just curious how other people handle the awkward stage where your kids are old enough to walk and go to their room to play or to the bathroom to potty but can't reach the light switch. My DH has taped wooden dowels to the switches so that DD3 can turn the light on and off as needed in her bedroom and in the bathroom. It looks terrible but is functional. What do you do?

Peggy

 

[Steve H.]

My son has recently figured out that he can carry (and, unfortunately for our hardwood floors, drag ) one of his stools everywhere in the house. He uses those to turn on lights, get things off countertops, and just generally get into things he shouldn't be getting into!

 

[KiminChicago]

At a Babies R Us store we found a cute teddy bear switch plate that has two cords hanging down. Pulling one of the cords turns on the light, pulling the other turns it off. It's really cute, the cord that turns off the light has a moon on the end, the one to turn on the light has a sun. You might find them at another baby store or perhaps one of the big hardware chains has them.

 

[ToyStory Fan]

My DS uses a step stool to turn on/off the lights. He can pretty much reach most of them now, and the ones he can't are remote control dimmers so he just uses the remote.

The step stool we have is a baby bjorn, from babies r us, it has rubber feet so it won't scratch or slip on hardwood floors, and has a rubber deck so kids won't slip off.

He also uses one of these to climb aboard the "potty" (we have one in each bathroom) when he has to go.

 

[stevenpensacola]

We found some switch cover plates made just for this purpose.

The plate had a slot in the bottom. In this slot went a piece of plastic about the size of a ruler. This piece has a hole which fit around the switch....the other end was formed with a "lip" to push/pull the light switch up and down.

Don't remember where we found them, but they weren't expensive.

 

[Beth E. (NJ)]

We also bought this attachment that we put over one light switch. It goes over the up and down portion of the switch and by pulling/pushing on it my daughter's could turn the light on and off.

 

[MerryPoppins]

When mine were little, I had the special switchplate too.

 

[TEENEE]

When my kids were small we had the switchplate that Stevenpensacola described. I think I found it at Wal Mart.

 

[katerkat]

Mine jumps. Do you know how annoying it is to suddenly see a flash of black fur and then lose the lights? Stupid cat.

 

[disykat]

Man I getting old. I don't remember it ever being an issue. I'm sure it was... I just don't remember. My youngest is turning 8, it hasn't been that many years. Now I'm just depressed.