This thread on kids in the shower by WhyNot got me thinking about all the stuff I do and did in my home to make it easier for both my kid and me to live together.
Some things are adaptations so a small child cannot ruin my stuff, like this self-made mesh screen door that protects our VCR set and yet allows our remote controller to work.
The obvious safety measures most sites list like these stairgates…(this pic shows how I had to make an additional stair post so the gate would fit.)
Others are adaptations so a kid can use our home in the same way we can.
For instance, by having a handrail along the stairs at her own height. Ours was made by buying two wood broom’s handles and fastening them to the wall beneath the adult’s handrail.
In this category falls also the shower slide bar mentioned in this thread, so kids and adults alike can adjust the showerhead to below their necks and showering doesn’t become a kind af waterboarding a kid will try to put off so mom and dad have more work because the kid can’t shower alone.
My kid has a small room, (the photographing dad stands in the doorway) so I tried to make the most of it with this bed. It allows easy dressing and diapering, saving my back, it gives a play house underneath the bed, double play space, and my son loves to climb it and jump from the bed into his bean bag chair.
This is his play corner in the living room, in our sight. He has elevated play room, storage he can acess, and his books are in the two lower shelves of the book case. The little carpet marks his area and is softer to sit on. And it is washable.
Lots of DIY tips can also be found here on Ikea hackers.
I moved the dishes to the lower kitchen cabinets because Celtling likes to set the table. I also designated a shelf and drawer in the refrigerator to be her “free” food -things she’s allowed to grab and snack on any time she likes.
Also, I got those Ikea step stools and put one in every room. Celtling was never going to be put off from reaching whatever she wanted to get. Better she do so on a safe step stool than using her old strategy of dragging the rocking horse around and balancing on top of it to pull down whatever she wanted. :eek: (Seriously, it was like a circus act watching her lean forward to reach into a cabinet with one foot on the head of the horse!)
I replaced all my emergency candles with LED tea candles. They are cheap, last for hours, and don’t start a fire if you leave them around.
I was a climber by the time I hit 2 years old, I would have been up and over using the horizontal dowels used to support the extra post holding the stair gate.
I have one of the over sized cube fridges in my living room [we keep our coffee maker on top, and creamer for the coffee for us adults inside] and I stock it with snacks - cut fruits and veggies, little pepperoni sticks, hard boiled eggs, cheese and so forth. It has a tiny freezer compartment that has freezer pops and ice cubes. It doesn’t have the cute can holder in the door, just regular shelves. Since everything in it is more or less healthy [and I only put in a few freezy pops at any given time] if they fill up it was no big deal if they miss lunch or dinner - I have found that if you don’t keep much in the way of junk around, kids will graze a fairly OK diet in the long run.
