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Evan will be about 18 mos (actual) this Christmas. He just learned how to walk 2 weeks ago. He is into everything!! Everything still goes into his mouth and everything he sees is his playground. I don't want him to hurt himself trying to eat ornaments off the tree or knocking it over on himself. But, I love having a tree, and I don't want to take that away from my 10yr old either. Is there anyway to babyproof Christmas?
We have a small tree with fiberoptic lights that can sit on top of our fireplace, It is 4 ft tall.
There is also a product on leaps and bounds website that is a soft/plush tree that you can let the little ones plat with as much as they like!
Last year we put a baby play yard around our christmas tree and it worked out great. She was crawling and pulling up, but not walking yet. She loved being able to stand and look at the tree and we didn't have to worry about her knocking it over or eating something she shouldn't. Kylie is 23 months old and we also have a 10 year old so I understand what your going through. I wasn't sure if we would be able to have a tree last year, but I didn't want to take that away from our 10 year old daughter. She has been through so much in this past 2 years since kylie was born, the last thing I wanted to do was change christmas too. Good luck.
Lol, we're thinking the same with Wade! We are seriously considering putting the superyard (6 sided playpen) around the tree...
Great topic! I love our Christmas tree! My first son is 6yrs old and was the type of kid who never got into things that weren't his. Boy, did I have it nice! My youngest gets into everything!!! He'll be just shy of 2yrs this Christmas and I'm also wondering how to "baby proof" the tree! My thoughts were to concentrate the ornaments above his reach! I'll probably put a few "tough made" ornaments down at his level! But we'll just have to see!
Hi,
We used the play yard fence inside around the tree, and never let the babies alone in the room with the tree. We also anchored the tree to the wall similar things that we had done to keep our Cat from trashing the tree years earlier.
lisa
I have a twin sister and when we were babies my parents used a play yard or baby gate around the christmas tree as well. They also make shatter proof ornaments your could buy, I know I saw some at Sam's Club, like a 100 pack lol. Good luck! What I'm doing with mine is I'm sticking it in the corner between my couch and entertainment center, and I'm planning on sticking a baby gate connecting the couch and ent. center that way he has no access to the presents, the sparkly cover for the base or anything else in that area lol.
I love this topic! My 21 month olds would knock down a playyard fence in 20 seconds flat! They already dimanteld all of our gates! We know they won't be safe with a tree (they can reach up on 36" counters, so even a table tree would be out of the question. So, we're putting fresh garland around the top of the room around the windows, and lighting it and hanging the ornaments from that! May sound goofy, but it will just be this one year!
We have a fiberoptic tree too! We bought it when we had a 1-bedroom condo. We've lived in a larger house now for about 4 years but have always pulled out that fiberoptic tree. It's pretty.
I would like to have a real tree this year too though. I'm less concerned about the toddlers (although I don't think that we'd be inclined to put any ornaments with hooks on it!), but it's our cats who concern us!
Love the idea of the baby yard around the tree! Good food for thought!
Good ideas everyone. I especially like the 4 foot fiberoptic on a table. I don't want to have to go out and buy a play yard right now. I will just decorate it with a few plastic/child friendly ornaments. I will leave it unplugged most of the time. Hopefully it will be lightweight enough, that if/when it falls over, Evan won't get hurt.
Katec, I think I remember a thread from last year, that kids with CLD shouldn't have a real tree. Do you think your kids are old enough now that it is okay? Just curious how long we should wait. Obviously, I can't get a real one this year anyway, but it just made me wonder- maybe next year...
Mygirlsmom- I love, love the garland idea. Genius! I may do that too. And since the angel can't go on the tree, I could put the angel up high in the corner of the room and string the garland from there.
Thanks everyone for the ideas!
29weekevan,
Doh! I completely forgot about that thread!
I actually think that my son would be OK. He's the one with CLD. But it is mild. We ended up getting him the H1N1 flumist per doctor's recommendation even though it usually isn't recommended for those with CLD.
BUT, my foster daughter has wheezing issues. Not officially diagnosed with asthma...yet. But we give her the nebulizer when her cough acts up.
Sigh. OK. I guess that we'll just have to stick with the one fiberoptic tree this year.
My parents will be getting a live tree for their place, so we'll at least get to see one...
I second the shatterproof ornaments. Daniel was 19 months actual (almost 16 months adjusted) last Christmas, and he loved to take them off the tree and drop them around the house! They had some pretty ones at Home Depot last year.
We will probably decorate the top half of the tree with ornaments and let the whole thing have lights. We do artificial usually because we keep it up so long.
Wow, thanks for this post, it actually has me thinking. Last year, we were in a tiny apartment in NYC and Jalen was a year but was not walking yet and we had a tiny table tree. Now we are in a house down in Tampa and we are getting a large tree but J runs, not walks, runs into everything. I have serious homework to do, but I am liking the baby play yard idea.
Our best trick was that we did (and will again this year) ring the bottom branches with bells...sort of an 'early warning' system if they were touching the tree LOL! It worked. Although, really, once they touched the branches and found out that they weren't that soft, they pretty much stayed away.
Our twins will be three this Christmas so I'm anxious to see how it goes with them understanding the concept of rules a bit better.
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