Babyproofing for a crawling baby: get on the floor and see what they see

The knee-height walk

A crawler's world is everything from the floor to about 30 inches, and it is a different room from the one you see standing up. So walk it their way: on your knees, one room at a time, looking for the six things below. Take the phone and photograph each hazard as you find it, then work the list. The AAP's advice for poisons applies to everything at this height: out of reach, out of sight, locked up if possible. The stage before this, for a baby who rolls and sits, is babyproofing at 6 months; the whole timeline is when to start babyproofing.

1. The stairs

The first thing a crawler finds is the staircase, going up, which is fun, and then coming down, which is not. Hardware gate at the top, always; a pressure gate with its wall cups screwed in is acceptable at the bottom. Regalo prints “never use at top of stairs” on its pressure gates for a reason. The ranking is best baby gates for stairs; the doorway gates for the rooms you want to close off are in best pressure-mounted baby gates.

2. Cabinets and the trash

Under the sink first, because Poison Control's 2024 data puts household cleaners at the top of exposures in children under six. Then the drawer with the knives, the bathroom vanity with the medicine, the trash can, and the cabinet with the glassware. Magnetic locks hide inside; straps handle the trash and the appliances. Best cabinet locks for babyproofing ranks them; babyproofing the kitchen walks the room.

3. Outlets and cords

Outlets are at exactly a crawler's eye level. Check for the TR mark; cover or replace the outlets without it; box the ones with a lamp plugged in; get the power strip into a box and off the floor. Cords along the floor are for pulling and chewing; shorten and route them. Start at are outlet covers necessary and finish with how to babyproof cords.

4. Small objects and the dog bowl

Anything that fits through a toilet-paper tube can be choked on: coins, buttons, batteries, dog kibble, the caps of pens, a sibling's toy parts. The knee-height walk finds them under the sofa and behind the TV stand. Button batteries and magnets are the two that need a call to poison control if swallowed, so the remote with a coin cell goes high. The dog's water bowl is a drowning hazard for a crawler and its food bowl a choking one; feed the dog behind a gate. No product replaces the walk here.

5. Corners and the furniture they will pull up on

A crawler falls forward from all fours onto whatever is at forehead height: coffee table corners, the hearth, the edge of the TV stand. Foam corners on wood and stone, clear on glass, per best corner guards. And in a few weeks the crawler will pull up on the dresser, the bookcase and the TV stand; if they are not anchored yet, that is the job for tonight, per best furniture anchors. The living room, where most of this lives, is walked in babyproofing the living room.

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