The last thing we parents want to do is add a new “list” to our routines near Christmas time. We’re overloaded already — shopping for the kids, planning dinners with friends, and trying to get as much work done as possible before we settle in for a cozy yuletide with our phones on silent. A whole new set of home safety rules? No thanks.
I hear you, folks, but if you’ve got toddlers running around this Christmas, the experts are in unanimous agreement: Your little bundles of joy (and boundless atoms of energy) require special attention because something as insignificant as a misplaced battery to us bigguns can land your little one in the ER.
So, to you tired parent, fire up those synapses for your final, and maybe most important, list of the year — how to toddler-proof your home for the holidays. We’ll start with the main attraction, which also happens to be the main intrusion into your normal living room environment: your Christmas tree.
Did You Know? Per the Consumer Product Safety Commission, between 2001 and 2020, 538,000 Americans went to the ER for (believe it or not) injuries involving paper products. That figure includes gift-wrapping accidents.1
Toddler-Proof Your Christmas Tree
Ok, so the absolute safest route here is to buy a mini tree and put it on a table where baby can’t get to it. Barring that, you’re going to have to get creative to keep your grabby tyke from savaging your Tannenbaum.
First, try leaving the lower half of the tree empty. (Nothing to swallow here, folks!) A Charlie Brownish Christmas might look a little weird but it’s important for baby safety.
No matter the size of your tree, you should shore up your stand. If you’ve got a wobbly one, donate it to the Salvation Army and invest in a heavy-duty base your child can’t tip over. There are many decent options these days. Finally, absolutely no tinsel or candy canes (toddlers can choke on them), and no tiny ornaments or decorations made of glass. Baby can either cut herself swiping them off the tree or she may try to swallow them.
FYI: If you haven’t tried decorating your tree with your little one, some parents claim this works like magic. The logic here is that little kids who take a proprietary interest in their handiwork, won’t destroy it later on. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose.
Hide All Batteries
Batteries. We need them to make our kids’ toys run, but for some reason we always seem to have the wrong ones. (Insert child Christmas tantrum here.) If you’re the proud parent of a 2- or 3-year-old, however, your relationship with batteries is a little more fraught, especially when it comes to the small, coin-shaped ones. Here’s why.
Shiny, disc-shaped batteries look a lot like candy to toddlers. Depending on the size of the battery, they’re an obvious choking hazard. You probably already knew that. Every parent does. But do you know what happens if your little one doesn’t choke and manages to swallow a battery?
Batteries, even inert ones, produce current. That current, in turn, produces sodium hydroxide, a corrosive acid. Consequently, if a battery sits in your child’s body undetected, it will start dissolving tissue and organs. In the worst cases, they can be fatal.
Bottom line? Christmas means toys, which means batteries. But the things that make their games go can easily land them in the hospital. So treat those stray batteries like old-fashioned mercury thermometers. Don’t ever leave them lying around.
Toddler Safety Tip: It only takes a lithium coin battery two hours to start damaging a child’s insides. If you suspect your toddler has swallowed a battery, get to the ER immediately.
Buy Safe Toys
Most of our toy safety tips are common sense, like keeping your eyes open for recalled toys. But you can find an up-to-the-minute list on the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) recalls page.2
Here are a few more toy safety tips our home safety experts recommend for toddlers.
Avoid vintage toys. As we saw in our deep dive into the world’s worst toys (see above), safety standards have, fortunately, gotten tighter over the years. Old toys actually might be dangerous.
Tighten up those battery compartments (pudgy fingers are stronger than you think) and supervise His Chubbiness while he’s playing with his battery-operated toys.
Heed age requirements. If parts are small enough to fit in baby’s mouth, they’ll say so on the box.
Test all your toddler’s toys yourself. Get down on the carpet. Put that toy together. Take it apart. Press the button. Watch the wheels. Your eyes and fingers might be better at catching potential risks than the manufacturer.
Pay special attention to toys coming from countries where safety regulations are less stringent. The bar for setting up a business on Amazon is insanely low. Not every business has toddler safety in mind (and that’s putting it mildly).
Did You Know? No parent can be in every place at once. One way you can keep an eye on your little ones and still get your holiday chores done is to put your indoor security camera to work as a toddler cam. It’s pretty easy. The best home security brands let you set up “toddler-free zones” where you get an alert whenever a naughty 25-pound object enters your camera’s line of vision.
Set Up Your New Gadgets Right Away (or Put Them Away)
I think it’s a habit most of us picked up in childhood — when sitting around on the floor surrounded by a landslide of new toys was the thing to do. Granted, we have fewer gifts as parents, but some of us have preserved the tendency to amass our slenderer Xmas fortunes around us, gloating in our parent booty. Well, here’s the thing.
If Daddy’s booty happens to include a big-ticket item like, I don’t know, a massive 85-inch TV, your child is at risk of serious injury. The longer those heavy objects lean against couches or stand on tables or countertops unsecured, the higher the chances your box-crazed toddler will be drawn to them — and bring them down on the floor or on their heads.
So, gloat for a minute or two, Dad and Mom, but then get to work. Get out the tools and install your new toys safely. If you’d like some extra “me time” with your gifts, remove those big, heavy boxes from the holiday play space.
FYI: Now that we’re on the subject, the holidays are also a great time to batten down any large equipment you’ve already got. It doesn’t have to be an 85-inch TV. Untethered stick vacuums, 10-speed bikes leaning against walls, and desktop computers with hanging cords are all toddler magnets.
Watch Out in the Kitchen and Beyond
You’ve got the sweet potatoes stewing on the stovetop and a roast beef roasting in the oven. Someone’s boiling water for hot chocolate. (Where did they go?) The timer goes off and you pull that roast out. But as soon as you do, the Nest Hub rings and it’s Grammy Barbara. For that split second you’re venting to Mom, your baby angel wobbles over to the open oven for a look-see.
It doesn’t have to be the oven. It could be the hot coffee you left on the table or the frying pan handle you left hanging over the edge of the stove. Holiday kitchens are black holes for frayed attention spans, and toddlers can strike in the blink of an eye. So be sure when you’re buried in a blizzard of recipe steps and ingredients, nothing hot is at arm’s reach.
The same goes for fireplaces, radiators, and gas stoves (those glass doors get scalding hot). Barricade these spaces off and never let your little one in a room with a heat source unsupervised.
Christmas Safety Tip: Kitchens aren’t the only places at high risk for fire-related accidents. Not that you need another holiday list, but if you haven’t checked out our Christmas tree fire safety checklist, you might want to head on over before Santa chutes into your living room.
Final Thoughts
Sharing the holidays with a diaper-clad, dimple-kneed toddler is about as good as it gets for a parent. But underneath all that disarming cuteness is a curiosity machine with hands as fast as hummingbirds. (We haven’t done any speed tests yet, but I’m guessing zero to 60 in half a second.)
These hands can snatch a battery, bring down a TV, tree, or pot of boiling water, or front-load a wad of tinsel. If it’s at arm’s reach, your 2-year-old will find a way to grab it.
We can’t Bubble Wrap our homes for the holidays, or dial down a toddler’s relentless curiosity. But we can give our pint-sized explorers safer spaces to play in. Christmas toddler-proofing doesn’t take much. It mainly means being a little more conscious of situations we normally take for granted, like cooking, decorating, and gift opening. If you can manage that — and hide all the batteries in the house — you’ll have a safe and merry yuletide free of Christmas disasters.
Citations
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June 11, 2023
