My little man is 8 mo old and a really good crawler these days. He just adores our fireplace. It's like he has radar for it or something. Anyway I don't want him sticking his hands in it because of the soot factor. Has anyone found a good way to prevent baby from putting their little hands in the fire place?
I found a solution! I have tried a lot of the suggestions on the board but to no avail. I bought the smallest baby gate I could find and it was too big. I put furniture there and he wanted to just pull up on it all day. So I found this free standing fireplace screen at Target. I am going to get it and put two sided tape on it so it will stick to the tile on my fire place. I think it is probably the easiest most inexpensive solution. I'll let you know if it works!
We attached a fireplace cover. They are glass doors attached to the front(open like french doors). They have handles on them where you can keep them closed with something. Baby gates didn't work for long with my son, he is a climber too!
I put a baby gate up across ours. It was the perfect size. Now We have put a Cedar chest there instead. It fits just inside our mantle and it is as tall as the fire place. We keep some of his toys in it and switch them out when he gets bored with his current toys. My son is 16 months now and we have had something in front of the fireplace since he was about 6 months old.
i had that problem when my son was about 6mos old andiput doors on mine and he never went bye it again.goodluck
Hi J.,
My son was the same way so we put our love seat in front of the fire place for several weeks and so he forgot about it. He will some times wonder over there but he is walking now and doesn't get into it.
Have you thought about having glass doors put on the fireplace? They'll keep the kids out and also can cut down on your heating and cooling bills if they are air tight.
Good Luck,
K.
My sister does not have children, but she does have bats!!! She placed a perfectly cut piece of plexi-glass on hers. You could do this if your looking for something more along the lines of temporary. If you want something more permanent, I would second the motion of the other post and install glass.
HTH
Margaret:)
Find a realistic, sturdy barrier, either a fireplace cover or baby gate.
This should actually be a standard part of babyproofing your house. If there's anything else you may have missed, take the opportunity to babyproof it. In the absence of the fireplace, he'll be looking for other trouble to get into. :-)
This worked for my little man. I bought a plastic rug, u know the one that has the little plastic spikes on the back side, well we placed that in front of our fireplace and when he placed his hand on it the 1st time he instantly removed it, gently placed his hand on it a 2nd time and crawled away to entertain himself in other ways. We never had the problem again. This may sound a little harsh but this was during the time we were actually using the fire place often. It's a quick, cheap solution to a small problem that could have turned out really drastic!
We had a big problem with it too. We have put a tension baby gate in front of it. Our son never messed with the fireplace again. I have other friends that place a wooden chest in front of the fireplace. It is a bit more stylish looking than my child gate.
