I’d like to start this off with a semi-related story. Dibs is starting the bath for Grayson, and I walk in to tell her to remind me to write a story about how much baby proofing sucks. I walk back into the kitchen to continue to sort out how to pry open the drawers. I suddenly get called back into the bathroom. Grayson is being held out by Dibs, naked, away from her body, and quickly hands him to me. As I grab him, plop. Poop on the bathroom floor. Shit got real.
Folks, it happens, so go ahead and start mentally preparing for it.
Baby proofing is the most annoying part of becoming a parent. And I say this with absolute confidence, as moments ago I was picking up human poo off the bathroom floor.
There are a few high level problems with baby proofing, which clearly I’m planning on listing below:
1. There is no such thing as eye-pleasing baby proofing… things. They’re all a shade of gray, or taupe, which is a decision someone thought was a good one. As much as I now regret our decision to not decorate our apartment with rubber, gray colored furniture, we live with our choices. Instead, we’re blessed with these rubber, round corners on the edges on all of our furniture. Sexy. (Granted, we’re buying these items from Target, but still…)
2. There’s a reason it’s been said over and over again, and I can now confirm it, the locks are friggin’ tough to unlock. The first set of locks we got, forget it, neither Dibs or I could pry it open. Now we have these zip-tie locks that I still can’t open.
I have an internal debate to get rid of the baby proofing things all together. He survived without it till his 1st birthday, he’ll be fine. I brought this up over the weekend, citing our youth as an example of surviving non-baby proofed living (I can’t confirm or deny that fact), and was quickly shot down.
Looks like we’re stuck with the unsightly protection for our child. Awesome.
Though, I’m still under the minority opinion that taking a few unprotected corners builds a strong, aware baby.
Skip The Youth 
It absolutely is. Many knuckles busted from screwing in those cabinet locks. Many knuckles busted from trying to open them also X(
We haven’t resorted to the gray foam corners yet… although my 3 year old daughter keeps hitting the corner of the kitchen island because she still hasn’t figured out that she’s grown taller than it. *sigh*
Let me know if you find a way to get any type of cushion to stick. I don’t care if it’s ugly, as long as my son doesn’t pull it off 3 seconds after I put it on.
We went with less baby proofing, rather than more. It is too hard to be playing defense while trying to pry open a cabinet. I don’t know if this was the right way but it was our choice. I’ll let you know how it goes.