Sane Parents Guide: Babyproofing and Safety

By Brad Powell

Our third Sane Parents Guide is focused on baby proofing and safety. It's a practical handbook on keeping your kids safe at home and outdoors. What stuff do you really need to keep your kids safe? Not the stuff the Big Box retailer tells you that you need. Not the stuff the glossy magazines tell you need. The real and essential baby proofing gear that you just can’t do without. The stuff that will keep you sane, without adding all the stuff that will drive you crazy.

That’s what you’ll find here.

This ebook features chapters on:

The Kitchen
The Living Room
The Bathroom
The Bedroom
The Outdoors

With included links to over 20 informative and entertaining DadLabs videos!

This multi-media ebook will succinctly inform expecting parents just what babyproofing steps they need to take to be prepared, without going crazy (as many expecting parents do).

We are tremendously proud to bring this ebook to you in partnership with BabyBjorn US -- the third in a series of six focusing on preparations for parenthood, and caring for infants. A new ebook will be appearing here about every month.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brad Powell
• Release date: Jul 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476074795

Brad Powell

America is seeing a fundamental shift in the role of men in parenting. While many in the media and academia have observed this trend, no company has emerged to meet the needs of these "New" fathers, the modern dads. Enter DadLabs, Inc., a start-up company dedicated to providing creative media content and information products to serve this new generation of "Super Dads." Headquartered in Austin, Texas, DadLabs is an information and entertainment company that fosters the father/child relationship through media, instructional and retail products.

Book preview

An Introduction for Sane Parents

How to keep your kids safe is one of the biggest concerns that parents have. With hidden and visible dangers lurking in every corner of your home as well as outdoors, babyproofing becomes one of the most important challenges a parent is faced with. But is babyproofing possible while preserving your sanity?

And what stuff do you really need to keep your kids safe? Not the stuff the Big Box retailer tells you that you need. Not the stuff the glossy magazines tell you need. The real and essential baby proofing gear that you just can’t do without. The stuff that will keep you sane, without adding all the stuff that will drive you crazy.

That’s what you’ll find here.

How do we know? From experience. Raising a bunch of our own kids. And from populating DadLabs.com with over 800 videos and 500 articles on the subject of being a parent. And also from talking to a whole lot of parents who come to the site with information and insights of their own. We don’t claim to be experts. Just veterans. And what we suggest here comes from our day-to-day lives as parents. And we’re still sane. Mostly.

We will do our best to keep the fluff and frills to a minimum (though this is an ebook about babies after all).

We will cover babyproofing and safety in five sections:

The Kitchen

The Living Room

The Bathroom

The Bedroom

The Outdoors

If you find something that you disagree with or you try something we suggest and it fails miserably (or succeeds wildly), we want to know about it. Join the conversation going on the forums at DadLabs.com and let us know what you think.

What you won’t find in this ebook:

Anything on getting your house ready for the baby. That’s in Sane Parents Guide #1. Or anything on Mobility. That's in Sane Parent's Guide #2.

A final bit of housekeeping before we get to the mobility: This series of books is produced in partnership with BabyBjorn® and their North American distributor Baby Swede. You’ll notice recommendations and endorsements of their products throughout this book. We decided to partner with BabyBjorn® in this project because we know and love these products, have used them with our own kids, and trust them completely. BabyBjorn® products would be featured here even if we had no official relationship. But luckily we do. Without them, this and future installments of the Sane Parents’ Guide would not be possible.

Chapter 1 – The Kitchen

Have you ever noticed that at parties often times lots of folks gather in the kitchen even though there are far more comfortable rooms. Just as adult revelers are drawn to the word for culinary place, babies once mobile are drawn to kitchens like moths to fa lame. Maybe it’s the tremendous supply of munchkin height cabinet pulls or the numerous shiny gadgets that beep and make noise. Or maybe it’s the interesting smells that seem exquisite to new virgin nostrils. Whatever the allure, if not properly proofed the kitchen can be one of the most dangerous rooms in the home.

Obviously the dangers of the kitchen increase as the mobility and strength of the child increases. You need not worry about your two month old sneaking into the kitchen and having a nice window cleaner and Comet snack. But for a variety of reasons you should be proactive and baby proof the kitchen prior to your infant’s arrival.

First of all, once the baby arrives you will be too busy and tired to hassle with baby proofing the kitchen. Secondly, a well-ordered kitchen will take much of the stress out of establishing a feeding schedule. And trust me, before you know it, your little tyke will be rambling around your cabinets banging on Tupperware.

The three major dangers lurking in a kitchen are potential cross contaminations, cuts and burns. Everything else is just an annoyance and so your main proofing focus should be