Baby proofing! As new parents this is something we look at and wonder how we live up to this standard and the repercussions for something we miss. Now, let me say this (and then duck and cover), we did not "baby proof" our house. I was raised in a house that was not "baby proofed" as was my brother and surprisingly we did live.

When we look back I think about all the things we did as children that today parents would think we had lost our minds! For example, we would climb over the back seat of the car and wave to the cars behind us. We took road trips in the family station wagon and we laid down the back seat and 4 of us packed in and then went 12 hrs across the country not a single one of us in a seat belt! We drank water out of the hose, and when one of the kids on the block got a can of coke 5-7 of us would "share" it, yes I mean drinking out of the can after each-other.

We made our home "child friendly" but not "baby proof." By this I mean we took measures to make sure we didn't have bean bags in the floor that the baby could crawl into and suffocate while she was not fully coordinated yet (you know the stage I mean). We did not use any blankets with our daughter we used footy sleepers. We made sure outside doors were always locked, and just closed doors into areas she was not allowed to go into.

We set rules from as soon as she could move around that became second nature for her. For example she doesn't need to be by the sockets, and just a loud noise when she went near them was enough after one or two times she didn't go near them again. I used a sound, mine was a loud "aaannnttt" when she heard this she would back away from whatever she was doing.

The one thing we did actually buy was a baby gate. We use this to block her off from the kitchen. This is the only area that I truly worried about because of the poisons under the counter. Of course now I could probably remove that as well because she knows she is not allowed in the cabinets.

Part of why we took this method with our daughter is the fact that we are the first of our friends to have children. It is not fair or reasonable to think that they would child proof their home because we had a child. So we had to make sure she knew the rules and followed them where ever she was. How could we expect her to do that if I "baby proofed" the house here? I think we would have become a little more complacient than I wanted to be knowing that she could not actually hurt herself due to the "things" we had put there to prevent her from getting to what can hurt her.

Now there is one thing I will say here, IF you have a pool you MUST child proof this! Another thing you must do is get your child in swim lessons as soon as possible. You are not looking for your child to be an Olympic swimmer, just teach them to get to the side of the pool if needed! Again, this is not optional, and if you don't do these two things it is very negligent on your part.

Children can swim from a very early age and if you have a pool in your yard you can easily spend some time to teach them without ever leaving the house if you want. Our daughter was able to get to the side at 19 months, so we had 7 months of fear when we were at friend's homes who had pools because she was able to walk and could not swim yet.

Take time to look and make sure that you don't leave things out that can be harmful to your child. Things like pills, razors, hot coffee, things like that. If you teach your child what not to do then you can breathe easier when you are other places because they know they are not supposed to do certain things (open cabinets/ touch electrical sockets) not just preventing them from touching them at your house.