I went to a RIE class (which generally I like, by the way) but their stance on plastic shiny toys made me feel like a technology loving heathen (which I am). I’ve read about the anti-stroller movement and once you do, you feel a little guilty about putting your baby in a stroller. I find that so much of my life as a parent is often analyzing and subsequently avoiding companies or philosophies that make me feel neglectful for NOT purchasing their product or subscribing to their behavioral methods for my child. But WTF were we going to do? Once someone – a professional – points out all the ways your baby can hurt himself and puts a price tag on it, you feel like the worst parent for thinking uh no thanks, we are not spending that on the safety/health of our child. We should have never called the service in the first place. That included all the supplies and the installation by the way. It was insane and we felt like massive suckers for even calling the company. In case you are scoffing at how ridiculous that is, we are VERY well aware and had no intention of actually doing all of it, and certainly not paying that dough. Then we got the quote and it was a cool $2400. ![]() This dude came and walked us through every single room, pointing out how our house is dangerous and scribbled down pages of notes. So when the time came, we did what any wasteful, yuppy, suburban parent with busy jobs and precious weekend time in 2015 do – we called a professional child proofer. Ultimately I wasn’t going to force Brian to subscribe to my parenting ideals – we were in this together and we needed to come up with our own strategy as a team. I wanted to shove his mouth full of cotton balls, because I knew that it validated Brian’s concerns and lost me the battle. But he had spent time as an emergency room doctor, and he basically said anything in your house can kill your baby so do anything you can to protect them at all costs. was a progressive, modern pediatrician so I expected to get the answer that I wanted – childproof anything dangerous, but not anything that can’t really hurt them. But then we went to the pediatrician for our 9 month checkup and I asked him about childproofing. I showed him the articles about risk and the so called ‘free range parenting‘ (which I’m pretty into) and he got into it and started coming around. But I was, and am crazy busy, he’s with Charlie more, and it was a hard battle a fight without sounding like a neglectful parent. I wanted to do some, but not too much and he wanted to do anything that was recommended. So when it came to kid-proofing we were on two different pages. Brian was more of the worrier (remarkably he is so much less so than he used to be when we kid-proofed the house…it’s AMAZING). But I was raised with lots of kids and I have lots of nieces and nephews, so I’m just comfortable around kids and generally I trust that they’ll be fine. I try to rid the floor and house of dangerous things to fall on, but then no, I don’t catch him unless its from high up. ![]() I’ve let him pinch his fingers in the drawer, obviously knowing that whatever he is about to do wouldn’t actually hurt him (It’s not like I let him grab the handle of a boiling pot of water in hopes of 3rd degree burns). I consider every small fall (where he isn’t hurt) as a victory – it means he’s that much closer to understanding risk, danger and how his body works in the physical space. We knew it when we bought the house, but it wasn’t until he was crawling that we were like oh shoot, this house is kinda a baby death trap.īrian and I used to have different philosophies on baby safety. Inside, as you see above, there are floating cement stairs, wood stairs with no railings, no yard (a big deck with views) and the inside is riddled with ironwork that is the perfect size for Charlie’s huge toddler head to get stuck in. It’s 2 flights up 27 stairs, to get to the front door for starters, which is wonderful carrying a 28 pound toddler while being 30 weeks pregnant. I love this house but she isn’t terribly kid-friendly.
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