Yesterday, my husband and I bit another baby-related bullet and had the safety experts at Safe Beginnings come to our house to analyze and baby proof the house for our nearly crawling son, HD (High Definition). I was conflicted about having them come for several reasons: 1) I didn't want them to turn our house into an ugly cage where adults, particularly my husband and me, wouldn't feel comfortable hanging out, 2) I didn't want them to try to convince me that I needed to lock down EVERYTHING, 3) I didn't want to spend the money or have others judge me for spending the money to do something that most people seem to do for themselves, 4) I wasn't (and still am not) sure about how I felt philosophically about locking up the house and preventing HD from exploring his environment. Less than 24 hours and more than $1K later, the conflicts are nearly settled in my head and I'm so glad we did it.
The representative, Jeff, who is also co-owner of the business, walked through our house with us, went over the major must dos like gates for stairs, showed us things we could do for ourselves (outlets, cutting blind cords shorter), explained latches, anchors, and didn't try to talk me into things I didn't want (e.g. toilet locks) but did explain the reasons why some people choose to get them. He even showed us that our new windows were equipped with child locks already and taught us how easy it is to use them. We picked the stuff we thought made sense (gates, latches, minimal padding for two-sided-death-trap fireplace and glass tv shelf, and outlet covers) and within 3 hours he installed all of it perfectly. I know from other friends' and family's experience that gates alone can be an all-weekend project and that's if you're handy. Jeff anchored two pieces of furniture (HD's front-heavy Ikea dresser and a book shelf we have our microwave propped on), installed latches on all of the kitchen cabinets, and left some fancy outlet covers for us to put on outlets of our choosing. The bulk of the cost was the gates themselves (2 sets of stairs, 4 gates, including one special one because of the layout). The install was only a quarter of the price.
So, while it wasn't a bargain, our house looks almost no different (the gates are hard to miss but I don't they SCREAM at us), and saved us an amazing amount of time and aggravation not only by installing the items, but also in limiting our choices (one of my biggest problems with everything that seems to be available in all aspects of parent/consumer world today). We'll see how it all works out once HD is really on the move, but it was a nearly painless process, and I feel it was money well spent (which is a phrase I don't take lightly). Jeff's one mistake: showing me how to disengage the latches.
