christmas trees???

Sandra - posted on 11/19/2009

with our twin boys we put ours behind the sofa on a small table for the look but don't touch effect, with our daughter last year she was crawling and just ignored it! this year I think she will be the fairy at the top! Hopefully stern words and keeping the door shut unless we are there might work! good luck x

Erin - posted on 11/19/2009

Well last year my daughter who had just turned one, managed to knock over the tree. It was sort of funny once I had determined she was not injured. She was laying on the floor under it smiling up at me. This year we are putting a small hook in the wall behind it and tying the top of it off with fishing line. This is what my parents did to keep the cat from knocking the thing over when I was a kid. Other than that.. breakable ornaments up and the good old " no, this isn't for us to touch". We'll see if the self control thing works in my house this year too. I just hate the way a pack and play or a barrier looks around the tree. So good luck!

Cassi - posted on 11/18/2009

well i only have 1 son...
but he gets a spankin 4 messin wit da tree.
or u can try time out.

Scottie - posted on 11/17/2009

I have a day care in my home and I put the non breakable ornaments on the lower limbs and I also wire them and the roping I use to the limbs if you have a wire tree pull the wire over the hanger, Otherwise I've used bread wires. Also its repetition reminding them that these are pretty to look at but not to touch. Allow them to touch certain ones only. I have christmas bells I allow the kids to jingle and couple of toy ornaments to touch but otherwise I say " its pretty to look out but not to touch"

Steph - posted on 11/17/2009

I have 3 yr old twins and I can understand why you would ask this! I was told about getting a gate to go around the tree or putting it in a playpen as well! They are both good ideas, but kids will be kids! Especially being the age that they are...and twins at that!!

In my own experience, I thought that things were going to be nuts, but honestly...it was better than expected! Only one of my twins would take an ornament off the tree everytime she walked by it and moved it, but nothing real major! One BIG thing I decided to do...for safety purposes, especially with little ones was making your own ornaments! I decided to make homemade ornaments out of sugar, flour mixture, etc. then I would have the kids paint them....which if the kids would take it and try and eat it, it wouldn't hurt anything!! I also used ribbons to tie the ornaments on...so no hooks to bother with either! I also had my kids string noodles to decorate the tree with as well.....they loved doing this!

As for putting something around the tree....I didn't, but it's your choice! Every time the kids went toward the tree, I would just make an aaaahhhh sound and they wouldn't bother with it too much. I think they just mostly wanted to feel what the tree was, I don't think it was so much of wanting to try and destroy it at all!

I hope I gave you some ideas as well as my opinion! Hope things go well for you!!

Kim - posted on 11/17/2009

Hi im a childminder and have 3 children under 3 years i have got one of the metal firegaurds so i put the tree in a corner and put the gaurd arond the tree and attatch it to the walls hope this helps

Krista - posted on 11/17/2009

You can't stop them. Sorry. You can TRY to stop them, but it's a new, interesting thing. I'd think about getting a gate. They have ones that you can erect around the tree. However, what I did with my tree when it was brand new to my son was made sure that no breakable ornaments were on the bottom and that the tree was fastened to the wall via fishing wire and a hook. That way, it couldn't fall down on him.

Katrina - posted on 11/17/2009

I do a combination of a couple of things that other moms have done. I tether it with fishing line (we have a very adventurous cat) and we use the hexagonal baby gate too (we call it the riot fence). I take two of the panels and put them in front of the tree, and anchor it to the wall (it's in the corner so we only need two). My daughter can still touch the ends of the branches so we put the breakables up higher than she can reach.

Brandi - posted on 11/16/2009

I have 2 kids and a very small living room. My daughter was afraid of the tree lights the first year and then had outgrown the lets get into everything stage of life, so she doesn't seem to bother with it. My son is 1 and a half and is a WHOLE OTHER story. Last year, he couldn't walk much, yet, so I didn't have too much trouble with him, but THIS year I know he's gonna be ALL over that tree. My plan is to securely tether it to the wall, so he can't get hurt, since it won't fall. Other than that i plan on a lot of "No, Don't touch the tree" also I always get a real tree, so I'll pick an especially prickly one, it shouldn't take him too long to figure out the tree hurts lol. *I HOPE* ha

Kelly - posted on 11/16/2009

Similar to what member - Donna Niemi-Barrett - did, i used my extendable child safety gate to barricade my tree and gifts off. Tree was also strategically placed in the corner of the room.

Camille - posted on 11/16/2009

thanks yall...i like the idea of yelling ewww bugs but i dont think that will work yet. they dont know what they are! but will def see about getting a gate to go around it.

Krystal - posted on 11/16/2009

thanks. i started doing it before i had kids i had this cat that would climb the tree and knock it over at night so i tied it to the wall. then i had my daughter and said to myself wow i already know how to fix this lol

Ashley - posted on 11/16/2009

i love the fishing line thing

Krystal - posted on 11/16/2009

what i did for my daughter who turned one just before christmas was tie fishing line to the top and middle of the tree and anchor it to the wall. this way if someone pulls on it it will not topple. also walmart sells unbreakable plastic oranments that actually look really nice. you could never tell the balls were plastic. we put those on the lower and middle part of the tree so that if she wanted to touch she wouldnt get hurt. and when all else fails yell loudly ewwwww bugs lol whenever they reach for it lol. it worked with my daughter she thought it had bugs and wouldnt touch it lol.

Ashley - posted on 11/16/2009

last year my daughter had just turned 13 months for her second christmas so she really likes the tree... we had to put the stuff up high enough on the tree she wouldnt get it ... after sayin no enough she wouldnt bother with it but then once and a while she get that look in her eye and try something... she never opened any presents tho... this year i dont know what we are going to do since this year we have a 6 month old now and our first daughter who is now 2... it should be fun...

Eileen - posted on 11/16/2009

My son loves the shiny things so we had a bit of trouble because no matter what we did he found a way around it, whether it was the cat jumping on it and pushing it over or him tugging until he got to it. we had to put the tree on a high table till last year. luckily it was a little one so it didnt look wierd. i like the ideas about the gates and will have to try it myself this year as we now have a really big tree and he will probably try get to it again. Sorry i dont have any advise for you other than that.

Jennifer - posted on 11/15/2009

We put the tree in the formal living room and used baby gates to close that area off to my son. That way he was only near the tree when he was directly being supervised by adults.

Lacey - posted on 11/15/2009

You might just have to put your breakable ornaments higher up on the tree and out of the babies' reach. You might even have to wait to put any presents under it until Christmas Eve. But you never know how they'll react to the presents so you might put some out and see what they do. Maybe they won't be that interested in opening them. My son was about 9 1/2 months for his first Christmas and would take the same little present and hide it. He wouldn't open it though. I like the idea of a gate though, if you have one.

Georgia - posted on 11/15/2009

What I did (and will do again this year) is use the playpen. I have a playpen that comes apart (it's like a series of gates that hook together into a hexagonal shape, if that makes sense). I take it apart and use half like a barrier in front of the tree to keep little hands off. Our tree is placed in the corner, so it's easy to barricade off, yet you can still see it. Needless to say, all presents are placed under the tree, but also behind the gate so out of reach to little hands.



It was easier to just remove the temptation, rather than have to constantly police the area. My eldest is curious by nature (like his mother), so I KNEW he'd have to touch and pull at it.



Good luck!