Outlet covers and cord safety: what your house already has, and what it still needs

What to buy first

A flashlight, to read the face of your outlets. If the receptacle has the letters "TR" molded between the slots, it is tamper-resistant: spring-loaded shutters inside that only open when both prongs push together, so a hairpin in one slot meets a closed door. The National Electrical Code has required TR receptacles in new and renovated homes since the 2008 edition, and ESFI counts roughly 2,400 children a year treated in emergency rooms for outlet injuries. If your outlets say TR, the outlet half of this hub is done and the money goes to cords. If they do not, the first purchase is a self-closing sliding plate for every outlet a child can reach, not a bag of plug inserts; the reasoning is are outlet covers necessary, and the ranked covers are best outlet covers for babyproofing.

How the category divides

Four products, for four situations. A plug insert is a plastic cap that fills an empty outlet; cheapest, easiest, and the one a toddler eventually pries out and puts in their mouth, which is why the CPSC's childproofing guidance warns that a removed plug can choke a child. A sliding plate replaces the wall plate with one screw and closes itself the moment a plug comes out; nothing to lose, nothing to pry, per best sliding outlet covers and the head-to-head in plug inserts vs sliding outlet covers. An in-use box cover is a hinged shell over an outlet that has something plugged in, for the lamp, the monitor and the kitchen counter, per best outlet covers for plugs in use. And a TR receptacle is the outlet itself replaced, which is the permanent answer and the one that costs a screwdriver and a breaker switch; the decision is tamper-resistant outlets vs outlet covers and the swap itself is how to replace an outlet with a tamper-resistant one. Cords are the other half of the hub and a different hazard: pulling, chewing and strangulation rather than shock, covered in how to babyproof cords, with the blind cords filed under windows.

What decides the price

The per-outlet cost runs from cents to a few dollars, and the whole house is under $50 whichever way you go. Plug inserts list $5.99 for 36 at Safety 1st and $8.99 for 32 at Jool or Wappa; a self-closing plate is sold from singles to 25-packs with the per-cover price dropping as the count rises; an in-use box lists $14.99 at Jool and $18.99 at Wappa; a power-strip box $19.99 at Wappa. A Leviton TR receptacle is a hardware-store item and the only product here with a UL listing and a code section behind it. What you pay for, going up that list, is the removal of a failure mode: inserts can be pried, plates cannot; plates can be left off, receptacles cannot; and the box cover is the only one that protects an outlet that is in use. Prices are maker list prices on the day we checked, linked on each spec table; Amazon sets its own.

The common mistake

Buying a 50-pack of plug inserts, filling every outlet in the house, and calling the job done. The inserts come out when you vacuum, they go back in half the time, and the ones that stay in are the ones a two-year-old learns to remove. The second mistake is covering the outlets and ignoring the cords: the phone charger dangling from the nightstand, the lamp cord behind the sofa, the power strip under the desk with six things in it. A power strip in a locked box and cords run through a cover or behind the furniture do more for a crawler than the fiftieth insert. The third is replacing receptacles without turning off the breaker, which is not a babyproofing mistake so much as a general one. If the house is newer than about 2008 and the outlets say TR, the mistake is spending anything on covers at all.