How to Keep Toddler from Destroying Christmas Tree Aka Childproofing

It's the age and the phase!!

Last Christmas my son was 16 months old when Christmas rolled around, and we got our tree. He was in the mode of it's new and it's mine. But, I decided that I didn't want to make exception to any of our usual Christmas traditions, and just make him a part of them. We though about the gates, getting a little one and putting it on a raised stand...it just wouldn't have been right.

First, we went to the Christmas tree lot where you can cut your own down, so he picked it out and it was 'his' tree...ownership is everything with toddlers. I went to Michael's and bought a bunch of cheap plastic ornaments that sort of went with my usual decorations, and let my son 'help' decorate the tree and explained to him how he had to be gentle and careful. As we decorated the tree, he placed his wherever he wanted them and had a blast! He felt like a part of the action, and while the bottom half of the tree wasn't the 'perfection' I like to acheive I will never forget how excited he was with his placement of each Teddy Bear, Santa and Snow Man. And, the pics are awesome!

During the days up to Christmas, it was an experience to watch him stand and stare at the tree. Of course, he was tempted to run into and grab stuff but, we worked through it with gentle guidance, talking about how the tree was special and of course Santa Claus came into play. It can be done...I didn't put all the presents out at once, but did put a few out over the first week and he was fine with them. Try to just stick to your usual plan and you guys will be fine, even if your little 'destructo' gets into the tree, just be patient and teach him about what's okay and what's not...

Good Luck and don't stress too much.

2 moms found this helpful

Get a table top sized tree, and put it up on a table he can't reach.
This will only be for this year probably, then when he gets older, a regular tree is fine.

Another option is to get a "fake" tree, a small one perhaps 2' tall or something.... that you put in another corner of the house, and THIS one, he CAN touch.
You just teach him that that is "his" and the other one is "not" to touch.

And yes, you just teach them not to touch the tree... and they do learn. Or, you put the tree in a room which has a door...and then you can close the door so that he can't go in there and touch the tree in case you are not able to eyeball him every single second of the day. Yes, the tree can topple over even like anything else that is tall. So it's a safety thing too. Or you just put "safe" ornaments on the bottom half of the tree that you don't mind if he touches it or "breaks" it by accident.

This is what we have done and it worked.
Good luck,
Susan

1 mom found this helpful

Hi A.~
You have gotten some great suggestions.
Here's another one. We have the big family tree that lots of people get for Christmas. We don't have toddlers this year but when we do we put the non breakable "pretties" on the lower part of the tree.
Christmas is full of sensory experiences for inquisitive discovering toddlers. You won't want to keep saying "no" to touching this amazing temporary addition to your decor (I am referring to the tree).
I found a small Christmas tree at Michael's and it was inexpensive. No lights just a plain little tree 4 feet tall.
I bought a box of shiny plastic ornaments at Big Lots and I let the little kids decorate their own tree....over and over and over again. The toddlers love it! Taking the ornaments off and putting them back on keeps them busy for quite a while. The only thing under the tree is the box for the ornaments. I just say, "The ornaments go in the box." If the ornaments get thrown, we have to stop for awhile and do something else.
When the little guy goes to the family tree to touch, I just say, "Lets touch your tree. Come help me." Then we move the ornaments around and re decorate the "kid tree".
This has been so successful that my now 11 year old grand daughter looks for that tree to decorate! She even makes the ornaments herself. I find little paper colored things taped on it or hanging by ribbon. One year she made an angel out of a paper plate and put it on top.
I have carried this over in to my preschool classroom, too. The parents have told me that the children leave the tree alone at home because they have had plenty of time to explore mine at school. By the way, it is most beautiful with ornaments clustered in one spot. I just love it!
The gifts under the tree are going to have to be put up til Christmas eve. I have not found a solution yet for this except to wait for the child to get older. (My 19 year old is still fascinated with gifts under the tree! Okay, so am I!)
You could try a couple of cute pre decorated boxes under the tree that are empty. That way if the baby gets the box it is no big deal. If you put several different sizes you could play a stacking game with them. After all, you want to have a fun Christmas...less stress is best!
Have an amazing happy holiday!
Merry Christmas!
C. K.
Oh! I forgot! Get LOTS of those stick on bows and remove the paper coating so they stick and let your toddler stick bows everwhere! (Does not work on the tree but how about the doors, walls, furniture.... FUN!) They love this! You will have so much fun with your Kodak moments this year!

1 mom found this helpful

Hi A.,

I had to laugh out loud when I read your question 'cause I have two boys who were very busy when they were babies and toddlers. Christmas can be dangerous for kids and for our Christmas keepsakes. I personally chose to only decorated the upper half of the tree with the fancy stuff and put cute paper chains or soft safe ornaments (w/ no metal hangers) on the bottom half. And of coarse no presents under the tree until its time to open.

But the funniest thing was my mom baked gingerbread cookie ornaments when my sister was young (she was also destructo) instead of putting out her nice stuff. Several times a day my sister would get a book and sit by the tree and read. This was not normal for her to sit and do anything. Later my mom was checking out the tree and noticed all these half eaten gingerbread men. We now have laughed for 35 years over this! Have a Happy Holiday and good luck with destrutco boy! This part doesn't last long..I promise:)

Smiles,
S.

Can your Christmas tree be set up in a room that can be blocked off with a gate? 1 or 2 small spring-loaded gates are definitely less expensive than a 10 ft hearth gate that would be used to angle around the tree.

If you have any other questions, my husband is the owner and operator of Safe & Sound LLC out here in Vegas. He's always willing to answer questions whenever a frantic parent calls and provides free in-home estimates, so I'm sure that he'll be happy to recommend the best gates to fit your needs. He can be reached at ###-###-####.

Hope this helps. Happy Holidays!

L.

I have always decorated kid friendly with a toddler (my 3rd will be 21 months this year during Christmas). There are a lot of cute plastic or stuffed animal type ornaments. At Micheal's they usually have flat wooden ornaments that can be colored or painted (maybe save this project for next year). I have also received/purchased kid nativity sets that my kids can play with. We have various Christmas stuffed animals/snowmen/Santa that we put on the couch. Something fun is to buy some kind of cheesy singing Christmas animal/snowman that your son can play with. They love music. We have a singing teddy bear that someone gave us when our now 11 year old was 1 and we love pulling it out every year and listening to it. Have fun, their childhood goes by so quick, there will be lots of years to pull out the nice decorations.

I have been doing this for years and maybe it will benefit you too.

When setting up the tree, I don't put anything on the lower branches. I just put them up high so my kids and animals couldn't get to them.

Also, I wouldn't put any presents out until Christmas eve. The kids know that they have presents from family members, but they also know that nothing comes out until then. THen I let them put the presents under the tree.

This helps in a couple of ways. The kids won't get into the presents until Christmas, and it will stop them from playing around the tree.

I hope this works for you.

J.

My Mom suggested I put mine in a playpen. works!

I have four kids and another one on the way! So, I know about this. Decorate the top 3/4 of the tree. Put decorations that won't break at the bottom. Or string some of little one's small toys. popcorn, his favorite snack etc. and put on the tree. Also, have little one "help" you decorate the tree with those things you've strung. Try not putting the presents out until little one is asleep on Christmas Eve. 'i know it sounds strange, but get down on the floor and see what you see, this is what little one sees, what trouble could you get into if you were little? This works for helping get a better view of how to better "childproof" the Christmas tree.

Good luck and Merry Christmas.

We've put ours in a play pen or put one of those portable fences.

A., your question has made me smile...many yrs ago, 38 to be exact, my youngest aon was into everything. I used a play pen a lot. But when I was putting up the tree, I realized there wasn't much room. So, I set up the tree inside the play pen, and using crepe paper etc I decorated the play pen also.
Good luck!

My kids are 3.5 and 1.5 so I totally understand where you are at.

We have always had a real and BIG tree in our living room.

We just put all the valuable/breakable ornaments on the very top. We let the kids put the nonvaluable ones on the bottom.

We put the tree in an area where they can only see one side of it. Ours gets put into a corner of our living room.

Presents get kept in the garage or closet (even ones that people send/give to us) until Christmas Eve after the kids go to bed.

We just keep an extra close eye on the kids when they are in the living room. So far no one has pulled down a tree....knock on wood. I think because of the size of the tree and it's heaviness, both my kids get the idea that it will hurt if it lands on them.

I don't worry about my 1.5 yo daughter trying anything with the tree, but I ALWAYS worry about my 3.5 yo son. He is the mischievous one who jumps first and thinks about it later.

When my youngest and very "busy " daughter was that age, we knew we'd be in trouble at Christmas when she ate some poinsettia on Thanksgiving!! So that year we bought a much smaller tree and set it up on a table out of her reach. I also minimized the decorations I put out, and kept them up high. It wasn't as festive, but at least it was safe.

I had to respond simply because our nickname for our son was "destructor" or sometimes "baby bulldozer" :-) so I so know where you are coming from. We did what everyone said, hang cheap-o plastic or felt ornaments at the bottom, no garland that can be pulled on. No presents under the tree unless you get really creative and wrap a few empty boxes for fun. Maybe he will surprise you and leave them alone! ;-) This next part will sound ridiculous if you don't have a "destructo" But we did, so my husband, being a fix it type, actually put a bracket of some kind on the wall behind the tree and used a tie down around the middle of the tree trunk to hold it to the wall in the back. Then he had to remove the bracket after the holidays of course but we made it thru without me worrying he would pull the tree down on top of himself.(which he WOULD have I just know it!) Good Luck!

We put the more fragile decorations towards the top of the tree and at the bottom one's that weren't fragile and wouldn't hurt our son if he did get to them. We also have him help us decorate the tree, which he loves to do. As for presents, don't even bother putting them out till Christmas night after he's gone to bed. Be ready to be saying a lot of no's and redirecting. It's doable, just be patient and will have to keep your eye on him a lot. We've made it through 3 Christmas's so far and hardly any damage to ornaments or our son. ;-) Good luck.

Oh yeah, since he was 10 mo's old, we've had his own little tree in his room. Every year we get him an ornament or more. He helps us decorate it.

We put our tree on our coffee table. It works perfect. We stil don't put much on the bottom part but being on the table really works for us. We don't really put any presents out till after they are in bed on Christmas Eve. Good luck!

Hi A.,
seems like yesterday i was in your same situation! my boys are now 5 and almost 7 ;-) all good suggestions here, many of which we did ourselves, only thing i would add is that maybe you can also find a location for your tree where you can tie the top (or center) to something like a curtain rod or something that is up high, using fishing line or, dental floss. Be sure to wrap the line around the main trunk of the tree. I used to use this trick with my cat before I had kids (my cat pulled my tree over the first year I had her). good luck and merry christmas!

When my third child was a toddler we did put the tree in the playpen. We put wrapping paper around it to make it look festive and the tree was safe from being pulled over and the ornaments safe from being bobbled or grabbed.

Having been there, save yourself.........
Do not get a large tree that sits on the floor and will be a constant temptation to him. You will be constantly vigilant and that is no fun for either of you.

This year, and out of the 20 yrs your son will be living at home, one year is not much.............get a small tree that sits on top of a table, out of reach........

Good luck and God Bless

When we were little my parents put some hooks in the ceiling of our entry way and hung a garden trellis from it. We went and bought the ugliest, bushiest tree we could find, cut off all the branches and put them on the trellis (between the trellis and the ceiling). Then we decorated it with lights and ornaments and hooked it to the ceiling. There was no way we could get to it by ourselves. It became such a great tradition that when my parents moved (after we were all grown) one of the new house requirements was a hallway or entry way to "hang" the Christmas tree.

Well, this isn't that creative, but we just didn't put any presents out until Christmas Eve (to make sure that we'd actually have some unopened ones on Christmas morning!), and we only decorated the top half of the tree with breakable ornaments - the non-breakable was all along the bottom. Our daughter was definitely interested in those low ornaments, but it all worked out fine! We're going to have to do it again this year now, since our son just turned 1 and will be determined to destroy the tree as well, I'm sure!

Good luck!

Put the Xmas tree in the playpen!!!

Just put only the decorations in his reach that he can "destroy" or actually not destroy. He will probably have a blast with all of it. Decorate just a few days before Christmas and take it down shortly afterwards. You have to do it, just try to minimize the impact!!

My main advice would be to not use glass ornaments, just so that you don't run into any problems during the learning curve. Even if the tree gets shaken, ornaments can fall off and the glass ones break into lots of teeny little pieces. Target and Big Lots sell some really nice looking plastic ones. That's what I did. My son wasn't destructive with our tree, but kids will naturally want to look at ornaments, so I decided not to torture myself or him with things that break easily.
I think it's also helpful to have things that are okay to touch so that everything isn't a "no".
Happy Holidays!
M.

I have in the past bought a smaller chritmas tree and put in on top of a table. I usually wait until Christmas Eve to put out the presents. I put all of them in a closet as they come in the mail etc. Also you could get a small fake tree for your toddler to play around with and decorate. Now that our kids are older we have a large formal tree in the living room and in the family room we let them pick their own small tree (they always get a flocked one) and they decorate it and put their school and church ornaments on it. It ends up being the most tacky but beloved tree of all. Good luck and Merry Christmas!

I went to the 99 Cents Only Store, and bought a few boxes of bright plastic ornaments, and some red pipe cleaners. I let my daughter help me hang the ornaments with the pipe cleaners. I kept the "real" ornaments boxed away until she was 4 or 5.

Hi A., I wouldn't put any presents under the tree untill Christmas Eve, and I thibk instead od nick naming him distructo, teach him not to touch things, and not be distructive I run a home daycare now for 11 years, with all age children from crawling babies and up and I have never had a problem with them being distructive with the tree and ornaments, they touch them, but I taught them how to admire the ornaments gently, a little bit of discipline gors along way, now is as good as time as any. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, J. L.

I didn't read all the requests so you may have gotten this one already...but we use fishing line (tied at the top of the tree) to hold the tree to the wall...it works wonderfully!! And keeps the tree from coming down! We also only put nice ornaments up high!

simply tell him NO, and lightly slap his hand.....if he persists continue .... they say in many management classes it takes the human brain 21 times to get something and change a habit.... be consistant and firm....

my son when he was 2 could walk into any antique store and kept his thumbs on his belt loops..... he knew that he could not touch.... he also knew that when we left he could have his fav car back ..... i never bought him NEW treats/toys I used his favorites in his toy box... I also had a glare and a firm tone in my voice..

its not rocket science you are the parent...... lol

happy thanksgiving and keep us posted...

b

My daughter was 16 or 17 months last Christmas and we opted for a small tree (not as fun I know) on top of a table. This kept it out of her reach.

Good luck.

Not sure what we're going to do this year! Probably just hang non-breakable ornaments down low.

When my kids were toddlers they hated the play pen, but the tree on a small table in the playpen kept them from the tree and the gifts. Worked really well. And it put the play pen to use.

L.

We nicknamed our daughter "Destructor", too! How funny.

We have a four foot tree we put up on a higher table, it's just out of her reach. They also make plush ornaments, and there are a lot of non-breakable ornaments you can find anywhere. But you still have to pick up the ornaments and put them back on the tree if it's still within reach.

I just got a small tree this year (4 ft) and set it on our entertainment center. It actually looks very nice and it's out of reach from baby hands : ) You can get small potted trees at Target or they have a variety of fake trees at Michaels that look nice. Good luck!