Babyproofing and the Tiny Apartment

You live in a tiny apartment with your tiny baby. Except that your baby is no longer tiny, and your apartment is now a straight-up death trap. What was once a newborn angel sanctuary is now a clusterfuck of destruction.

Your baby is on the move. She’s trying to understand her new world, and she finally has the means to do so. She yanks, throws, topples, hollers, rips, and swan-dives. She’s a Tasmanian devil leaving a trail of smoldering ash in her wake. And get this, she puts literally everything in her mouth. Ick.

You’ve been putting off the babyproofing for weeks. Okay months. But your sanctuary is slipping away. Now you basically live in a hard hat zone because everywhere you look it’s all, Choking! Poison! Head trauma! Disease! Falling! Crashing! Drowning! Strangulation! Everywhere.

And it’s really starting to fuck with your head.

If you lived in a mansion babyproofing would be easy. You’d corral your baby to one wing of the manor or whatever, far away from your firearms and IV drug paraphernalia storage area. But here in the real world, in your tiny apartment, you’ve got the one closet, maybe.

You just have to get started, you say to yourself. The rest will fall into place. You’ll start by identifying the hazards, and then you’ll reinvent those hazards in such a way that your baby won’t be able to accidentally bash her head in.

Here’s a few to get started:

DANGER: Ingesting gross or poisonous shit. You don’t want your baby getting into your expired migraine pills. Or that bottle of drano. Or your vibrator.

SOLUTION: Lock it up. Designate a cabinet/drawer in your apartment for contraband, and lock it up. Use babyproofing locks to keep your apartment looking chic. Or just use some duct tape. I think you have some in the back of that junk drawer.

DANGER: Getting crushed by heavy furniture or appliances. Your baby is getting really good at yanking things from high places. Like, really good. And you heard on the Today Show or South Park or something about how you don’t want your baby getting crushed by a TV.

SOLUTION: Tie it down. Identify all of the furniture or appliances that have the potential to crush your baby: TVs, bookshelves, lamps, potted plants, lord knows what else. Then strap them down with furniture restraints. It’s worth it. Besides, we live in earthquake country.

DANGER: Drilling her tiny head. Your baby is more mobile than she’s ever been. She’s physical, and with all of this standing, crawling, and balancing comes slipping, falling, and collapsing. Your baby is taking lots of head shots these days, and you’re trying to keep the brain trauma to a minimum.

SOLUTION: Protect the head. Identify everything your kid can fall off of, out of, or onto, and fix it. Get rubber bumpers for the corners of your tables. Locks for your windows. Do not pull an Eric Clapton. I repeat. And if you have stairs in your big fancy apartment, put up a gate. (bougie jerk)

Babyproofing is unique to each household. Do you have sixteen cats? Consider sending them to that farm in the countryside. Forever. Are you growing more than three marijuana plants anywhere in your apartment? Consider diversifying. Maybe you update your LinkedIn profile, can’t hurt. Same goes for your dominatrix business. I know sales have been up ever since that favorable write-up in Modern Dominatrix Quarterly. I know.

Just suck it up and do it. Make the tough decisions. Get it done. You got this.