Saving Your Home From Your Baby: A Lesson In Baby-Proofing
So six months into this whole new parenting gig, I realized it was time to baby proof my home. Or in other words, protect my home from the grubby, sneaky little creature that would be all over the place and on a mission to destroy it. By this point, my little one was already crawling and getting his hands dirty with God knows what. He was sneaking into the cleaning cabinet and trying to get high on Lysol spray. He was picking up the occasional dead insect on the floor for an afternoon snack. And he was trying to go down the stairs head first like he was a makeshift bobsled on a death mission. You know, Dora The Explorer on steroids type of shit.
I’ve read a ton of articles about how to baby proof homes. There’s a bunch of checklists out there about what to make sure to do, along with some advice about actually getting down and crawling around so you can see your place from your little one’s perspective. That last one is pretty damn smart, if you ask me. But this wasn’t enough for my husband and I. Not only were we a bit paranoid that we’d miss something, but we also knew our home was pretty hazardous, and therefore, would take a ton of time to baby proof. And a weekend of baby proofing wasn’t our idea of the best time.
Enter Safetynook, one of the top child-proofing services in the Bay Area. For $125, they spend 2 hours walking around your house and giving you the low-down on what you should do to protect your home from your child (and vice versa, of course). Afterwards, you can choose to have them install whatever you want them to, or do it yourself. Any installation they do for you is an additional charge.
For the peace of mind and the time saved, I felt happy about my decision to go with this service. They identified things that I didn’t even think or read about in my research because they were so specific to my home.
Things like placing the blind lift cords in between the blinds so they’re not choking hazards. Or removing the window latches altogether so the little one can’t get through -- the latches I have apparently are specifically designed to easily remove for instances like baby proofing. Who knew? On top of that, we have a ridiculous amount of cabinets in our house that needed special locks installed and a bunch of heavy furniture that needed to be wall-mounted -- and it would have taken a ton of time to install all of these things.
So if you have some money to spare, are interested in saving time, and also making sure you have all your bases covered, I’d recommend checking out your local baby proofing service. Your home is an investment, after all.