Childproofing Grandparents' House for the Holidays: A Room-by-Room Checklist

Every holiday season, our family packs up three kids, including our twins, and heads to the grandparents' house. And every year I have the same thought as we walk in the door: this house was not built for toddlers.

Grandparents' homes are full of love, good food and things little hands shouldn't touch. Pills sit on the nightstand, glass candy dishes sit at toddler height, and the dining chairs are often older, heavier and easier to tip than the ones at home. If you're visiting family this year, or you're a grandparent getting ready for a visit, here is the room-by-room checklist I wish I'd had years ago.

The short version

• Do a 15-minute walk-through at toddler eye level the day you arrive.
• Move medicines, purses and coin batteries up and out of reach first. These are the biggest risks.
• Gate the stairs, lock or block cleaning-product cabinets, and anchor anything that can tip.
• Check the dining chairs. Holiday meals mean long sits, booster seats on adult chairs and lots of leaning back.
• Agree on who is watching the kids during busy moments like cooking, opening gifts and arriving guests.

Why grandparents' houses need a second look

Most grandparents childproofed their homes decades ago and have since put the gates in the attic. Products and advice have changed, and the house has filled up with things that weren't around when our parents were raising us, like phone chargers, button batteries and daily medications.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a helpful childproofing guide written just for grandparents. It covers gates at the top and bottom of stairs, locked medications, cabinet locks and never leaving a little one alone in a high chair. It's worth sending to your parents before you visit. Here's how we put it into practice.

Room-by-room checklist

Entryway and living room

• Purses and coats: Guests' bags often hold medicines, gum and hand sanitizer. Put them on a high shelf or in a closed bedroom.
• Coffee tables: Clear off candy dishes, small decorations and anything glass.
• Remotes and gadgets: Check that battery covers are taped or screwed shut.
• Tree and decorations: Anchor the tree, and move breakable or small ornaments to the top half.
• Furniture: Make sure bookcases, dressers and TV stands can't be pulled over.

Kitchen

• Move cleaning products from under the sink to a high cabinet, or add a temporary latch.
• Turn pot handles toward the back of the stove, and keep toddlers out of the cooking area during the busy stretch.
• Push toasters, coffee makers and their cords to the back of the counter.
• Keep knives, foil boxes and plastic wrap out of reach.

For a fuller list, see our kitchen and dining room childproofing checklist.

Dining room: the one most people forget

This is the one I care about most, because it's where our family got hurt. My son Reuben was sitting in a booster seat strapped to a regular kitchen chair. He pushed off the table, the chair tipped backwards, and we spent the evening in urgent care. He was fine, thank goodness, but I've never looked at a kitchen chair the same way.

It happens more than most parents realize. A study in Clinical Pediatrics estimated about 40,889 chair-related injuries a year in U.S. children 3 and under, and most of them came from falls.

Holiday meals raise the risk. Kids sit longer, they're excited, booster seats go on unfamiliar chairs, and adults are busy passing dishes. A few simple steps help:

• Check the booster seat straps. Strap the booster seat to the chair and the child into the booster seat, every time. Our post on how to keep a booster seat from tipping over has more tips.
• Leave a gap from the table. Toddlers push off the table edge with their feet. Set the chair so their feet can't reach it.
• Stay away from walls and windows. A tipping chair is worse if it can hit something on the way down.
• Add a chair stabilizer. This is why I invented the Jackaroo Leg. It straps onto the back legs of a regular kitchen or dining chair so it's much harder to tip backward. It needs no tools, doesn't damage the chair and comes off when the visit is over.

No product replaces an adult at the table, but a stabilizer is one more layer of protection on a chair that wasn't made for a wiggly toddler.

Stairs and bedrooms

• Put a gate at the top and bottom of the stairs. Gates at the top should be screwed into the wall, not pressure-mounted.
• Clear nightstands of pills, reading glasses and phone chargers.
• Set up a safe sleep space for babies: alone, on their back, on a firm, flat surface.
• Keep blind cords tied up and out of reach.

Bathrooms

• Lock up or move every medication, including vitamins and creams.
• Keep the bathroom door closed, or add a doorknob cover.
• Never leave a child alone in the tub, even for a moment.

A quick plan for grandparents

If you're a grandparent getting ready for a visit, you don't have to redo the whole house. Focus on the rooms the kids will actually use. Keep a small "visit kit" in a closet: a pressure gate, a few cabinet latches, outlet covers and a pair of chair stabilizers for the dining chairs. Then everything goes up in five minutes when the grandkids arrive.

If you have several chairs to cover, the Jackaroo Leg is 15% off when you buy 4 or more, so a set for the grandparents' table is easy to grab before the holidays.

Make a "who's watching" plan

The biggest risk at a family gathering isn't any single object. It's the moment every adult assumes someone else is watching the kids. Before dinner, pick one adult per hour as the "kid watcher," and swap so everyone gets to eat. It sounds silly, but it works.

Keep the Poison Control number, 1-800-222-1222, saved in your phone, and post it on the fridge at Grandma's.

Enjoy the visit

A little prep up front means more time at the table and less time chasing toddlers away from the stairs. Do the walk-through, secure the chairs and the medicine, then sit down and enjoy the pie.

Greg Dunn is the inventor of the Jackaroo Leg and a dad of three, including twins.