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06Babyproofing by Room & Stage

Babyproofing by room and by stage: start where the kid is, not where the catalog is

Enter from either door. If you know the room, we walk it in the order a crawler meets the hazards. If you know the stage, we tell you what to buy first, what can wait and what to skip.

38 guides and picks in this section · How we choose

4our Kiddies Baby Proofing Kit (56 piece)
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Hangman Anti-Tip Kit (TK-400)

The babyproofing checklist: every room, in the order the injury data says to do it

A room-by-room, injury-ordered checklist for the whole house, with every row linked to the guide that explains the standard and the ranking that picks the product. Print-friendly.

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Featured pick: Hangman Anti-Tip Kit (TK-400)

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Best picks

Ranked picks for this hazard

What to do first

Read the babyproofing checklist, which is the whole house in one list, ordered by the injury data rather than by room: furniture anchors and the TV, then the top of the stairs, then the water (bath, toilet, pool), then poisons, then outlets and cords, then windows and blind cords, then the fireplace, then the corners and doors. Every row links to the page that ranks the product. If the baby is not moving yet, the second read is when to start babyproofing, which puts each job on a timeline; the drilling jobs belong to the months before crawling. If the baby is already crawling, skip to babyproofing for a crawling baby and do it tonight in the checklist's order.

How this section divides

The five hazard hubs each cover one product category. This section covers everything that cuts across them, in four kinds of page. Stage guides: 6 months and crawling and one year old and two year old, each listing what a child of that age can actually reach - and, at two, which of last year's latches they have already beaten. Room guides: the bathroom, the living room, the garage and the pool, plus the kitchen, which lives in its own hub. Situation guides: the apartment or rental, where the deposit is the constraint; the apartment balcony, where the door matters more than the railing; and grandparents' house, written for the hosts rather than the visiting parent. And the cross-category rankings: best babyproofing products, which re-scores every hub winner on one weighting; best babyproofing kits, with the honest inventory of each box; best bath spout covers, which pads the metal and then tells you the water heater number that matters more than any cover; best medicine lock boxes, for the poisons a cabinet latch never covers because they move around the house; best removable pool fences and pool fence vs alarm vs net, because drowning is the leading cause of death for children one to four and the CPSC counts about 376 pool and spa drownings a year under 15; and the two gift lists, gifts for new parents and gifts under $50.

What the whole job costs

Less than most people expect, if the money goes where the injuries are. At the makers' list prices on the day we checked: an anchor kit per dresser at $10 to $15, a hardware stair gate at $70 to $80, a certified doorway gate at about $51, a 12-lock magnetic set at about $30, a sliding outlet plate or a bag of 36 inserts for under $10, corner guards at $10, a window guard at $90 to $115 per window that needs one, and a pool fence section at about $116 per 12 feet. A three-bedroom house with stairs and no pool is a few hundred dollars at list; the pool adds more than the rest combined. The kits are the cheapest entry and the most misleading one, because no kit includes the anchor or the gate, which are the two products with deaths behind them. Where a product on this site has no maker price on file, we say so rather than guess; Amazon sets its own price and the buttons show it.

The common mistake

Babyproofing by room instead of by hazard. The room approach starts in the nursery, which is the safest room in the house, and gets to the dresser in the living room and the stairs a month later. The hazard approach starts with tip-overs, stairs and water because that is where the CPSC's death counts are, and gets to the corner guards last. The second mistake is waiting for the first crawl to start: the jobs that need a drill are far easier with a baby who cannot yet move, which is the whole argument of the 6-month guide. The third is treating a kit as the job. The fourth, for renters, is assuming that no-drill means nothing can be done, when nearly everything can. And the fifth is skipping the pool because the child is "never out there alone"; the CPSC's drowning data is about children who were never out there alone, either, until they were. If you want a professional, the IAFCS keeps a directory of certified childproofers, and a good one will tell you the same order this page does.

Five more guides sit in this hub. The alarm layer behind a pool barrier is ranked on best pool alarms. Babyproofing a house you do not own is on best babyproofing products for grandparents. Whether a boxed kit is the right purchase at all is settled on babyproofing kit vs buying separately, the order to spend in is on babyproofing on a budget, and the four jobs worth paying someone for are on professional babyproofing vs DIY.

Head to head

Comparisons

Guides

Guides: how to install it, and whether you need it

Filed elsewhere, written for you

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FAQ

Questions people ask

Where do I start babyproofing?
With the checklist, in injury order: anchor the furniture and TV, gate the top of the stairs, handle the water (bath, toilet, pool), lock up poisons, then outlets, cords, windows, fireplace, corners and doors.
When should I start babyproofing?
Before the baby moves. Anchors, outlets and the stair gate are drilling jobs for pregnancy leave or the 6-month mark; cabinet locks and corner guards go on when crawling starts.
How much does babyproofing a house cost?
A few hundred dollars at makers' list prices for a house with stairs and no pool, if the money goes to anchors, gates and locks first. A pool fence costs more than everything else combined.
Is a babyproofing kit enough?
No. Kits cover outlets, cabinets, corners and doors. None includes a furniture anchor or a gate, which are the two products with deaths behind them; buy those the same day.

Ask us

Got a hazard we haven't covered?

Tell us the room, the opening or the product you are stuck on. Reader questions decide what we research next. Email contact@gateandguard.com or use the contact form.