Baby Proofing Tips for the Minimalist

This post was sponsored by Window Covering Safety Council as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

When it comes to baby proofing our house, we like to keep it simple. We want our kids to be safe but I certainly don't have every cupboard locked up and gates all over the house. We prefer to teach the kids to stay out of certain areas instead of locking every single item up. It is much easier on us and I am not super paranoid so we like to keep it simple.

Here are the minimalist baby proofing tips that we use in our house:

1. Baby gates on the stairs

We have basement stairs in our home and an upstairs and we have a gate that always get shut on the top of the basement stairs and on the bottom of the upstairs. I like giving my kids free run of the whole first floor so they can play as they like and I don't have to be a nervous wreck while I'm doing something like making dinner. This helps keep them safe and on one level of our house.

Chemicals go in our highest kitchen cabinets. Period.

2. Chemicals put up high

Though we don't lock up the cupboards, we moved our chemicals like cleaning supplies and ant spray up super high in a cupboard so the kids couldn't get to it. I remember one time Oliver bringing me the can of the ant spray right after Troy had used it and from then on, we knew we had to keep it up high to be safe.

3. Cordless blinds

When we bought most of the blinds for our home when we moved in 6 years ago, we bought cordless blinds right away. I liked the way that they looked and they are much safer than blinds with cords. Corded blinds can get tied up together and can cause strangulation to a child which terrifies me so we are very happy with our cordless blinds. We have a big third floor renovation going on right now where we are turning our unused attic into a bedroom and just bought cordless blinds for that room!


If you are a parent or have younger kids around, check your window covering for dangling cords and consider replacing them with cordless products as they are a strangulation hazard. These cordless options will be identified as having the Best for Kids™ certification which are available at major retailers all over the country. 


October is National Window Covering Safety Month and the Window Covering Safety Council has lots of safety information on this topic.

4. Put sharp objects away

Anything that can be considered sharp such as knives, scissors, pens or a box cutter should be put away so that kids cannot reach it and hurt themselves.

5. Knick knacks put away 

When you have young kids, if you don't want something to get broken, don't have it out. Knick knacks will get broken and your child could get hurt by broken glass or other dangerous materials. We choose not to have any knick knacks out at arms reach and then I don't have to worry about it. Holiday decor can be tricky as I just realized that this year, I can't put many of our decorations out because Oliver would grab them. For fall decor, I just decorated our mantel which is high up of course and called it good.


That's it! When our daughter was younger, we did put a lock on the snack cupboard because that girl never ever wanted to stop snacking and then wouldn't eat her dinner. For my son, we haven't done this yet but may need to soon.