OT- babies and hardwood floors????/

[MSSANDRA]

When our DS was little we had all carpet in our home except kitchen and baths. Now with DB ( the son of our niece that we helped raised ) we live in a home with all hardwood floors. He is 7 mo and starting to pull up and cruise a little in his crib. My floors really scare me. We are having a big "child proofing party" very soon for all three houses he stays at but I have no clue how to minimize the impact of his frequent falls onto the floor while he is learnign to walk. Any ideas??

Also are there any new "got to have" child proofing products out there that will make life safer for our little one. DS is 15 and while we child proofed to the max for him, it has been a while. We have a large tile fireplace I have to protect him from as well as glass table tops (WHAT WAS I THINKING !!!!!!

Thanks for your help!

MsSandra

 

[Bradensmom06]

My DS is 11 months and we have all hardwood and tile floors. I bought large (18x18) foam playmat squares at Sam's Club, but I've also seen smaller (12x12) Babies R Us and in the One Step Ahead catalog. As for babyproofing, so far we are really lucky and DS only tries to get into the cat food , so we purchased a baby playyard (6 or 8 sections of gates) that we can move around to block what we need. Hope this helps.

 

[Oceana]

I have 2 boys who both learned to walk on hardwood floors. I did nothing special. They did not wear socks much to get better gription.

Skulls were made hard for a reason... they knew as babies we would be crashing them into everything

Imagine the cave babies learning to walk on stone floors!

 

[mom2aiden]

One thing that has been a lifesaver for us (my DS is 2) is this fireplace cover. They can cut it to the dimensions of your fireplace and it actually covers the whole hearth, rather than just the corners or edges! If the hearth to your fireplace is raised, I highly recommend it.

My DS still climbs on top of our hearth, but I feel totally safe letting him play around it. Ours is brick so I was very cautious with him playing around it until we got the cover.

It's definately an investment and once we got it, my DH said "I could've made that!" So if you're handy, maybe you can make something similar and save some $$. The big difference may be that the material they make this out of is fireproof. But, it's held up well for the past 2 years and peace of mind is worth a lot!!

Google baby safety foam. (I don't have enough posts to post links) The website should come right up.

Also, check out onestepahead.com for more baby proofing items. They have just about everything you can think of! I just bought some furniture straps, which connect heavy furniture to the wall so baby can't tip it over on themselves. My son likes to climb his chest of drawers and changing table if we aren't carefully watching him

Hope this helps!

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

We had to overhaul some of our furniture selections. Glass and/or pointy edged tables got relegated to the living room (which is closed off) or the garage/basement until our kids were steady enough on their feet that it really wasn't a worry anymore (probably waited about a year). We have all HW floors too and they really aren't as hard as you might think-definitely much worse if your child takes a tumble on ceramic tile or marble floors. We have area rugs on our floors in most rooms. Our stairs and hallways have runners. For your fireplace, if your not going to be using it for a while, I would do crib bumpers and double sided tape-that is what we did-cheap and easy. By the time winter comes around, probably won't even be an issue for your toddler and you can uncover it or block it off with a baby gate if it is still a problem.

 

[mom2aiden]

We also had glass topped cocktail and end tables. We put them away as soon as DS started cruising around and bought a large ottoman instead. The top is hinged and we use it as toy storage. Can't beat the dual purpose!

 

[Aneille]

I really wouldn't worry too much about the hardwood floors.

My 3rd child just learned to walk on all hardwood floors. Not a single carpeted room in the home. All of them did perfectly fine. Of course they bumped their heads at times but really heads are hard.

Kids generally get hurt learning to walk from the furniture. They are holding on, lose their balance and bump their heads, face or chin on the table they were holding.

We hardly used socks. The kids were in barefeet or Robeez most of the time.

 

[Diamondintheruff]

All three of my kids were fine on hardwood. Again like the other replies they hardly wore socks (I only bought the kind with the grips on the bottom) and by the time the 2nd and 3rd came along I used robeez slippers too.

 

[NotUrsula]

Just skip the socks; those little sweaty feet will improve his traction. I also used puffy fabric paint to add a non-slip sole surface to all footie sleepers for my early walker. (If you wax your hardwoods normally, then don't do it for awhile; wax is slippery.)

The floors are the least of your worries; the furniture is much more dangerous -- make sure anything tall or top-heavy is secured to the wall, and think about removing anything cantilevered if he can't walk all the way under the protruding shelf. Also take out any knickknacks that might fall and smash if he shakes the furniture they are sitting on.

You might also consider putting flip-latches on the exterior doors of the house and a hook/eye on the bathroom door up high -- once they are standing tall enough to work the doorknobs you can have an escapee on your hands, or have them getting into the water sources in the bathroom, which is prime tooth-cracking territory with all that porcelain around.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Thanks everyone. It is almost like we never raised a baby before!!! DS is 15 and that seems so long ago. GLad no one ever had a child get hurt on their hardwood floors. We are barefeet people too. I moved the coffee table out today and the entry way table is going next. We are all going to babies R us this week-end to get all the outlet cover, tolet locks etc. DN is quite young and I am going to help her child proof her home as well as my M-I-L's where the baby also spends time.The fire place is another big worry and I thank you all for the suggestions.

It is so different what matters now compaired to when his mom and DS were little. Safety is SO big but the little things that I fretted over when mine were little seem so small. I can not count the times we have taken this little one out to eat in his PJ's. Mine had to be dressed too cute to leave the house. I do not want to know however how much we have spent on car seats for this little guy. We bought top of the line for both us and his mom! OUCH!