I’ve seen mates with home-made stuff (typically foam/rubber simply sellotaped onto the surface) but it ruins the finish when removed etc. Therefore is stuff like Prince Lionheart and ThudGuard really worth it? Or are you cooking up some other homebrew method? My preference is to do the latter, but need to figure out how to prevent ruining wood/paint etc.

Cheers

You’ve got a toddler, and are worrying about the decor….?

We didn’t bother and just reorganised our house and furniture a bit to suit our kids.

Crawling around on your hands and knees is a good way to spot potential problems.

Foam rubber pipe lagging for the edges. Cheap an holds itself on most of the time.

You’ve got a toddler, and are worrying about the decor….?

Actually fadda is bang on. It will all be crayon covered matchwood in a year anyway.

We didn’t bother to be honest. One whack of a sharp corner on the forehead seemed to teach them to be careful enough 🙂

Same for cupboard locks and the like, there is cleaning stuff in low cupboards in the kitchen but the kids know not to go in there. Just need to be watchful and consistent with the yes’s and no’s.

But I know that’s not how everyone wants to do things…surely gaffertape and karrimat is all you need?

We didn’t bother and just reorganised our house and furniture a bit to suit our kids.

Crawling around on your hands and knees is a good way to spot potential problems.

Same here. Niether kid has managed to injur itself.

Ikea do a load of corner protectors, cupboard locks etc. A mix of 4 corner protectors, big elastic bands to keep cupboards closed and some furniture rearranging is doing the trick for our toddler.

No harm in protecting kids and furniture..

Even if we moved stuff around it would still provide the same risk – it’s just the way the rooms are designed (quirky old cottage).

Pipe lagging – nice one, that should do the trick with a bit of gaffer tape here n there. Should be fine as a door stopper too.

Yep, the crawling around thing is good – am doing that already.

Cheers

You can train (some) kids not to make a mess of your stuff. We never used edge protectors, but then we didn’t really have many edges. We don’t use cupboard door locks either, mainly because we were too lazy to fit them. We just took everythign particularly dangerous out of the low cupboards and let her unpack everything when she wanted to. Pans and stuff mostly. Trained her to stay out of the knife drawer when she got old enough to move the step stool to the right place.

We’ve found with ours that it’s give and take. We let her to lots of stuff, so when we do properly prohibit something she understands and doesn’t feel aggrieved.

I need edge protectors…whacked my face on the corner of a chair (wooden) yesterday whilst putting my shoes on!

If it was me, I’d just put some pipe lagging in the worst places, I think getting a few little bumps is important as it teaches kids not to walk into things!

Yep, I’m cool with the idea of ‘letting’ them bump into certain things, so the lagging will be exactly just for that. SM junior is only 9 months though (and crawling at speed) so communicating the virtues of not opening certain doors isnt’ an option just yet. But it will be.

the only corner cushions that have stayed put are the Mothercare ones.
i had to put them on the corners of my fireplace as they are quite sharp.
other brands that i have used before have peeled off after a while.

TTFU 😉 . We used door locks in the kitchen, a few blanks on the mains sockets and removed anything ornamental. A coffee table in the middle of the room is a useful handhold. Ours was slightly rounded edged already.

Just use common sense and avoid over-protection (easy to say).

We didn’t use corner protectors and our girls were fine. One day I decided we should put some on and the first thing they did was focus on them and after about 30 minutes had pulled them off and proceeded to hit their heads on the corners. I took them back off and they have been fine since.

I put locks on the kitchen doors, but as Molgrips said, let them have a good old rummage, they love it. You can go ott with protection, sockets obviously, & anything blatantly risky, but they soon learn after nudging stuff at low speed. 🙂
Please dont overlook anything that dangles though, one of my local routes takes me past a beautiful house in which a toddler sadly lost its poor life because of a blind cord. So tragic.

We put a child gate at the bottom of the stairs and that was it. I think there is a serious point to be made about not getting sucked into all the anxious parent nonsense that there is about these days, because:

A) It won’t work. If they are the sort of kid that has accidents, then they will find something to injure themselves with.

B) You may end up worrying about increasingly trivial “threats” in an eventually counterproductive fashion. It is part of the development process for kids to hurt themselves (a bit) and work out that it is their own stupid fault, not the fault of an adult for failing to protect them.

One word of very real advice.

Don’t use socket blanks if you have modern sockets – the (British Standard, tinkered with for ages by people who know what they’re doing) shielding in them is already better than the blanks (produced by guys who just want your money).

As with all protection there are no guarantees a determined individual can’t defeat the shielding of course, but by using shields you are generally reducing the protection you have.

We started by putting corners protectors on but JnrFD just peeled them off.

A bit of sticky tape/glue on your furniture is going to be the least of trout worries in terms of child furniture damage!

We didn’t do it either. We had a few knocks but TBH nothing too serious and IME, they find a way to hurt themselves even if you do try to protect things – case in point, mini-clubber split his eyebrow by slipping and hitting the edge of the tv unit which would never have been covered even if we’d used corner protectors.

Child gates on the stairs were good though.

igm explain further if you can please – you’re saying by blocking off the sockets you actually make them more dangerous? How does that work? Surely the point is that little fingers don’t get poked in the socket holes?

re: sockets, it’s to do with the gubbins that blocks off the holes until the longer earth ‘pin’ of a plug is inserted. If you have ever tried putting a euro plug straight into a uk 3 pin socket (you can’t just shove it straight in) you will see how hard it is to electrocute yourself by inadvertenly putting a finger into one. A toddler will need to work out how to get something long into the earth ‘hole’ to get past the flaps to live and earth holes, and have the dexterity to do both at the same time. By using a plastic socket blocker you are doing that bit already, or providing a handy tool which can be removed and used upside down to open the flaps to live and earth (which is of course one way to bodge a euro plug into a 3 pin socket 😳 )

but the socket blockers block the sockets…. even if they don’t really provide any extra protection from electrocution, they do provide protection from little fingers jamming things in the sockets.

Surely the point is that little fingers don’t get poked in the socket holes?

Plug socket covers (the world’s most stupid invention ever) aside;

I’m far from an expert here, but surely you’d need some very small and odd-shaped fingers to get them into a plug socket?

but the socket blockers block the sockets

As Julian says, they’re already blocked, internally.

Is toddler electrocution a big problem? Can anyone find me a case of it ever happening in the manner described here?

Cougar you do realise that small children have small fingers and are quite adept at sticking them in things they shouldn’t, as anyone who has ever found nutella in the DVD player can attest?

The uk socket design blocks itself. Although not against rusk or wax crayon to be fair. The socket blocker provides the potential means to unblock access to the live and earth (ie dangerous) bits by breaking or inverting the socket blocker and using the perfectly shaped earth ‘pin’ for bypassing the earth pin safety gubbins. IIRC igm works in in the trade so i expect he has some real research/info as opposed to my own inept-dad fiddling experience.

By using a plastic socket blocker you are doing that bit already, or providing a handy tool which can be removed and used upside down to open the flaps to live and earth

As an aside, it’d be trivial to design a ‘socket protector’ that didn’t do this; you just need an earth pin made from two vertical blades which dodge either side of the socket lever, rather than a solid pin. No idea if such a thing exists, though.

you do realise that small children have small fingers

Small enough to wedge into a mains socket?

If you’re prone to leaving screwdrivers around then yeah. But fingers?

Yes it’s really likely that a small child will remove a socket blocker, have the strength and dexterity to break it, then reinsert only the longest pin to uncover the other two, then stick something in there 🙄 Oh STW, never change.

randomjeremy – Member

Yes it’s really likely that a small child will remove a socket blocker, have the strength and dexterity to break it, then reinsert only the longest pin to uncover the other two, then stick something in there Oh STW, never change.

randomjeremy, is that any harder or easier than bypassing the pre-existing inbuilt safety device by any other means though? I think the risk of rusk/plasticene etc mucking up the socket is prevented by the use of a socket blocker but electrocution seems an equally complex and circuitous task (did you see what i did there?) whichever way you or a toddler tries it.
However in my experience, gaps in floorboards/skirting, vcr’s and the good old catflap are far more interesting and entertaining targets for posting/gumming up behaviour.

Yes it’s really likely that a small child will remove a socket blocker, have the strength and dexterity to break it, then reinsert only the longest pin to uncover the other two, then stick something in there Oh STW, never change.

Yes, I’ve always found STW a good place for advice to stop people wasting their money on pointless consumer crap too.

You’re missing the point Jeremy. Probably no child is going to do as you suggest, but neither are they going to manage to electrocute themselves in an uncovered socket either, because the holes are blocked from the inside. Go on, try it.

Now, inline switches to bedside lamps – that’s different – when my boy was 3 he managed to pull the flex out of the switch and touch his sister with the live ends.

The thing about socket protectors being dangerous isn’t completely made up. It actually happens afaik.

I have a niece who stuck some kind of play dough into a socket in my house. She didn’t get electrocuted but she did **** my socket up, hence if I ever have small children, I’ll be installing socket blockers.

Yes it’s really likely that a small child will remove a socket blocker, have the strength and dexterity to break it

No breaking necessary. Julian’s explained the issue, but you seem to be having difficulty with complicated things like words so here’s a short video:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-WhFgaqCX0[/video].

You can fast-forward to two minutes in for the practical example.

You’re trying to fix a problem which doesn’t exist, using a solution that potentially(*) causes a problem.

Oh STW, never change.

I like to think that questioning wooly thinking is a public service.

(* – ho ho!!)

Cougar you’re my hero. Best post ever.

RJ how old was your niece when this happened?

Next time it could be a child’s face.

There’s more reading here – http://fatallyflawed.org.uk/ – including a photos of how readily a 15-week old finger will fit into a mains socket.

if I ever have small children, I’ll be installing socket blockers.

That’ll stop ’em.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c82O8bI6u0c[/video]

molgrips, I think she was probably 2 years old. Managed to jam some sort of dough into the top slot of the three, and it set, meaning the socket was unusable – I probably could have scraped it all out with a screwdriver but just got it replaced. As usual the forum bellends have got the wrong end of the stick. The best way to stop a small child from bunging play dough into your sockets is to block them off.