Before I became a Mother I didn’t really think about how safe a piece of furniture was before I bought it. My criteria was “Does it look nice?”, “How expensive is it?”, and “Will it fit in the required space?” But then I had children, and brought two little adventurers into the world.
Two little adventurers who like to climb up anything they can find.
Two little adventurers who like to shake things.
Two little adventurers who like to explore shelves.
And suddenly, as soon as Busby began to crawl, and cruise, and walk, I realised how dangerous everything in the house could potentially be.
It’s like the ‘spot the potential hazard’ part of the theory driving test; except it’s not on a computer screen… and I had hazards coming at my precious bundle from every angle.
Baby-to-toddler life with H-Bear has been even more heart-attack inducing, as he was walking unaided by 11 months old, and that boy LOVES to explore. Only the other day I disappeared into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea, and came back into the lounge to discover that he’d climbed up onto our big armchair, and then onto the windowsill… and was happily waving away to our neighbours through the window.
Ahhh!
Room to Grow have recently written this article on the importance of furniture safety, and tasked three of us parenting bloggers to try out three safety bracketing packs that are currently for sale.
We were sent these Baby Dan furniture straps, which are a great idea for big objects such as wardrobes or bookcases. Both children love to read, so the bookcase in Busby’s room is well used and always makes me a bit nervous when both children are choosing books. I guess the fear with cheaper, flatpack furniture is that it’s not as solid or stable as an antique may be (our pine dresser, for example, is the sturdiest piece of furniture in our house!), and as Flat Stanley is fiction, the reality of the situation would not be so happy… or useful (I would love to be able to slide underneath doors).
Attaching the straps was relatively easy – although Nick and I were frustrated that the pack didn’t contain any screws for the task. You can read more in the article linked up above, and find out which brackets the other bloggers involved used – and which came out on top.
Do you safeguard the furniture in your house?
Thank you so much for testing and thereby focusing on child safety! Our passion is to keep children safe so we LOVE the initiative of testing safety items.
Just for clarification: It’s actually for safety reasons that the Baby Dan furniture safety strap doesn’t come with screws 🙂 The type of screws you’d need depends on the material of both the piece of furniture and the wall you want for attach the furniture to. For optimum safety you need the right kind of screws that fit your home and furniture. Therefore we choose not to deliver standard screws that may be wrong – some people may skip reading the instructions and use the wrong screws which could end badly. After all the important part is that the little ones are kept safe in the best way.
Keep up the good work of inspiring parents to optimize safety!