When we put our Christmas tree up this year we realized we had a big problem. Our baby, Jemison, is 7 months old and is crawling faster and faster every day. He cruises across the furniture and climbs on everything in sight. He’s a monster. We kept asking ourselves… how are we going to protect our Christmas tree with a baby in the house??
I’ve heard that many people find the solution in just decorating the top half of the tree. But my OCD just couldn’t handle having a half-ornamented tree. We might as well not even have a tree if we can’t decorate the bottom half.
We’ve tried a few things out to try to discourage unwanted tree-touching and thought we would share our research with you!
First, we put up one of those big ugly baby gates. This worked great. Jemison couldn’t even reach the tree. He would try and try, but the gate was so solid and wouldn’t even budge. The only problem–it’s just so ugly. That’s no way to enjoy a Christmas tree.
So we decided that we would just make a simple barricade with couch cushions whenever Jemison’s downstairs. Easy enough. HA! Jokes on us! The cushions simply made the child more determined. It became a challenge to see how quickly he could get through the pillow barricade.
Well now what? In desperation we attempted to remove the temptation, but keep the tree in one piece by putting it on a table. The tree was so tall and majestic; however, we feared for our lives! For safety reasons, we decided that it might be better to keep the tree firmly planted on the ground.
Then we had an idea! What about a lego wall? We got right to work on building a lego wall to protect the Christmas tree. This was so much fun we almost forgot that we were on a serious mission. Then Jemison went on the attack… The lego wall couldn’t hold him back. But it did act as a distraction. Instead of grabbing for ornaments and bells he was content to suck and pound on the legos. Problem solved.
Until I had to clean up the legos every night so that I could enjoy my pretty decorated Christmas tree.
In the end, we found a simple solution: communication! Once we started telling Jemison “NO!” when the tree tempted him to come play with those pretty shiny balls and a couple days of consistent training, he rarely ever tries to touch the tree anymore. It’s a Christmas miracle!
Now it’s time to add some presents under the tree. Thank goodness the baby is trained and we won’t have to go through that whole process again.
I hope you are enjoying your holiday season and keeping your Christmas tree safe from those little tiny hands 🙂 And maybe every once in a while, just let them be curious and explore. It’s so fun to see their eyes light up with excitement from something new! Just make sure it’s under your supervision or they might get confused! Merry Christmas!
What a cute post! Sweet success after all the trial and error! But good luck with the presents under the tree….we never did find a way to keep them out even until they left home…I wonder if they’re still “peeking”!!
Yep. The kids are fine… Scott’s the problem. Lanae keeps scolding Scott for touching the presents. He even tried to shake one you sent us and she got so upset.
He is getting so big!! I put our tree in the kitchen, which is blocked off by a baby gate. Granted, we don’t have a ton of room in our apartment and the kitchen was pretty much the only place with empty space! But Little A was fine and we didn’t have much of a problem! Then I put the presents under the tree yesterday. Now we have a whole different problem haha!
The presents are presenting a problem for us, too!