How to Baby-Proof with Bungee Cords

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In an ideal world, we would have completed baby-proofing the entire house several weeks before Gv made her arrival.

In the real world, we are just now getting around to tackling this project as she is approaching her first birthday.

We were given all sorts of cabinet-safety gadgets made for this specific purpose, but hadn't realized that they all pretty much involve drilling, screwing, and nailing them into our cabinets.

Besides all the work involved, we weren't exactly thrilled with the thought of hacking up our nice cabinets.

So I walked into the kitchen one day to discover that G had created this solution:

It was the perfect answer to our baby-proofing dilemma.  The bungee cord (find some here) makes it super-easy for us to get into the cabinets when we need to, still allows Gv the chance to play with the cabinet doors a bit (she's going to have killer biceps, I tell you) and although it may not be the prettiest kitchen accessory at the moment, it's completely temporary - without damaging our cabinets!

Pretty much all of our cabinets and drawers are safe for Gv to open up and explore - even the one pictured - but the area under the sink can seem kind of gross and damp, so we didn't want her hanging out in there.

In another area of the kitchen, we have sort of a desk area with drawers.  These drawers contain all sorts of wonderful things for little girls to explore, like scissors...and matches...paper clips...and staple guns (why, oh why do we have a staple gun in a drawer in the kitchen and not out on the workbench in the garage?)

So, taking inspiration from my amazing hubby, I created this:

I must say, she has occasionally pulled open all three drawers at the same time and then proceeded to jam her adorably chubby little arm into the spaces between them, searching for treasures, but it's definitely been a deterrent.  I've also found that it is much easier to begin teaching her not to mess with these drawers when they're all hooked together like this.

We're happy with our anti-baby security system.

Of course, if you have knobs on your drawers and cabinets, this might not work quite as easily.  I was telling a friend the other day about what we'd done and she said they had just used string to tie their cabinet knobs closed on their entertainment center.  After a bit more consideration, I feel pretty sure you could still get the bungee cord idea to work, as long as your cords were thin enough to wrap securely around the knobs.

We have neither knobs nor pulls in our bathrooms, which is something I've always been meaning to change.  This is one of those times I've been happy not to have gotten around to completing a home project, because as much as Gv tries, she cannot open these.  

Yet.

I'm sure that as her strength and coordination improves, we'll have to come up with something for these rooms, but until then, we're all set.  We might even have to use the typical drill/screw/nail cabinet locks to secure the bathrooms at that point, but I'm not so bothered by hacking into those cabinets to do it...

Have you thought of any creative ways to baby-proof your house?  I'd love to hear them!  Leave a comment or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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