On a Roll

It’s time for me to accept now that River is definitely getting into everything. A couple of days ago a newly married friend looked at me and said she was surprised that I didn’t seem stressed or tired. She told me about her cousin, pregnant with her third, who is exhausted from watching her two kids, especially her 1.5 year old boy, who is into everything.

Initially, I’ve looked into his curiosity with support. I’m an explorer myself, I expect that he may be also. I tend to think that he has a certain knowledge of his boundaries. Even if he doesn’t, I know that going outside those bounds is how he learns.

But I’m now learning that along with learning, comes getting hurt. There was his fall off the bed last week. This morning he caught his fingers in the cupboard. Though I rescued him within seconds, I think he still felt substantial pain. After a walk, during which he stood up in his stroller for the first time, I brought him inside. Our babysitter, Grace, was already there. There were about 30 seconds during which River crawled on the floor and neither of us were watching him carefully.

When Grace came to him, she saw a little blood on his finger. I thought it was from the cabinet incident that morning. Then we both saw a fairly deep scratch on his nose, with blood emerging from it.

Mark closes off the dangers by putting gates at the kitchen entrance and the base of the stairs. I understand that we need to do that sometimes. However, we have a small place. With those two areas closed off, River has only two small rooms to move through. It’s a very limited space for a growing boy.

Mark thinks this acknowledgement means we need a bigger house. I think I need to figure out how to balance River’s need for exploration with my responsibility to keep him safe. I imagine this is something that many parents struggle with. How do you manage this?

I think I’ll also need to bring him to areas with more space – outdoors when the weather improves – to the library or the mall until then. Especially once he starts walking, he’s going to need some room to move.

Safetyproofing

This weekend was our safetyproofing weekend, inspired by the arrival of Mirena. While River can now cross a room, mostly pulling himself across, he’s not yet in danger of getting into too many things. Mirena however, at 8.5 months old, already crawls like a pro, stands up and even walks when holding onto something. It was actually helpful that her presence motivated us to safetyproof ahead of when River needs it.

What did we do?

Turned the coffee table so that the edges are less accessible and there is more open space in the living room. Put plastic covers on the corners of the coffee table. So far, these haven’t been very effective though since both babies were immediately drawn to them and were able to pull them off easily. One remains on, the other is on the floor.

Put wires as much out of reach as possible. We gathered them at the back of tables and other furniture.

Put plugs in the electrical sockets.

Got a used gate on freecycle to block access to the kitchen.

Got a sectional gate playyard in order to block off a safe area for play. We also ordered a foam mat so that there will be a soft surface within the playyard to roll around. We have yet to try this set-up.

Took books off of lower shelves and boxed them up.

Put latches on kitchen cabinets. I admit we’ve been a bit lax about keeping them off, because the child-proof openers are not so easy for adults to open either. But we’ll be more careful with the cabinet that contains cleaners and other potentially dangerous items.

Put all writing devices out of reach.

Make the office an off-limits space, and the kitchen an off-limits space to Mirena.

We’ll see how this works in practice and whether any additional steps are needed. I wish there was some type of device available to baby proof babies from each other. Because the main problem we had on our first day with two babies in the house was them touching and potentially injuring each other.