Keeping LO out of the Christmas tree

[lydiasings28]

So, with the time to decorate for Christmas drawing near, how do you plan on keeping your curious toddler out of the tree?

With E, I'm thinking a firm "no thank you" might not cut it. I thought about just getting a smaller tree and putting it up on a table or stool, but that poses other problems i.e. cats jumping and grabby hands pulling it down. Other than that, I got nothing.

[raynes]

We're planning on anchoring the tree to the walls/ceiling, only using plastic ornaments and going with a firm "No!". I see disaster in our future.

[lydiasings28]

Nov 29, 2013 14:53:21 GMT -5 raynes said:

We're planning on anchoring the tree to the walls/ceiling, only using plastic ornaments and going with a firm "No!". I see disaster in our future.

How would you go about anchoring your tree?

[lydiasings28]

Nov 29, 2013 14:57:47 GMT -5 jamaicam said:

Nov 29, 2013 14:53:21 GMT -5 raynes said:

We're planning on anchoring the tree to the walls/ceiling, only using plastic ornaments and going with a firm "No!". I see disaster in our future.

Pretty much this - planning on dealing with A around the tree in a similar way to the way we deal with our cat around the tree! So firm nos, anchoring with fishing line and having ornaments he can't break nearer the bottom. Oh, and no presents out in advance unfortunately.

Our way of dealing with the cats in the tree is to sic our dog on them. Unfortunately, the dog won't chase E lol.

[ruby412]

We're planning to start with the firm "no." And if that doesn't work, we might gate it off? Definitely no presents out in advance.

[lydiasings28]

Nov 29, 2013 15:05:01 GMT -5 jamaicam said:

Nov 29, 2013 15:02:30 GMT -5 lydiasings28 said:

Our way of dealing with the cats in the tree is to sic our dog on them. Unfortunately, the dog won't chase E lol.

Lol! We have also been known to tap our cat on her nose with a rolled up newspaper which I won't recommend for use on toddlers

Ha! Yeah, all abusive insinuations aside, E would actually probably laugh at me if I did that!

[bean47]

We plan to anchor it with fishing line to the walls and ceiling. We'll tell her "no touching" which is what we use for anything she isn't supposed to touch. I know she will touch it, look for our reaction and then put herself in time out. That will probably continue daily! We definitely will not put any presents out until Christmas morning and will keep the ornaments up high.

[jaime183]

we are just hoping he doesn't touch it. lol this might be wishful thinking.
we will put ornaments down low that he can touch and make sure we're with him in that room.
We do have a play yard gate that we will put up if necessary

[rubber pants]

We got her a little 4' fake tree of her own that she can decorate and play with.

The real tree will be a big firm NO and tell her this is not Marisa's tree.

So far she has done well with her fake one. She gave it a hug and is taking the ornaments on and off.

Instead of saying "Christmas tree" she says "trick or treat". Haha

[kandrze1]

I keep telling myself and my H that she won't be that interested in it after awhile. There will probably be a whole lot of redirecting going on for a couple of days, but I'm hoping she gets used to it being there and doesn't play with it. I guess that's wishful thinking.
I'm not planning on hanging anything on the lower parts of the tree she can reach. I probably won't leave her alone in the living room anymore as long as the tree is up. If it becomes a serious issue we'll probably gate it off.

[bean47]

Nov 29, 2013 15:32:50 GMT -5 rubber pants said:

We got her a little 4' fake tree of her own that she can decorate and play with.

The real tree will be a big firm NO and tell her this is not Marisa's tree.

So far she has done well with her fake one. She gave it a hug and is taking the ornaments on and off.

Instead of saying "Christmas tree" she says "trick or treat". Haha

She's adorable!

[jsillyfun]

Anchoring and telling her no and unbreakable ornaments at the bottom. It worked last year, but we'll see. Definitely no presents out. I already told her about Santa and when i say,"Who is Santa bringing the presents for?" she points to herself. Lol. But then she also points to me. It's important to her that i get presents too, apparently.

[katfco]

Sadly, I think we've just decided not to do a tree this year. We won't be here anyway and don't really have the room for it. Almost all of our ornaments go on by hooks, so there's no toddler-safe ornament to put on the lower branches. And it's huge.

[charmediamsure]

We put one of those Superyard things around it.

But he's been practicing his pitching and launching toys at it. Our broken ornament count is currently just one, but the tree has only been up 2 weeks.

[dixeedeluxe]

Just a no and redirection.

Today I bought each gal a mini tree for their room. They'll be able to decorate and touch that one as they wish. Plastic ornaments.

[dixeedeluxe]

FWIW, neither of my kids have ever bothered the tree and we've never put up a barrier. We get real trees and just put soft ornaments at the bottom just in case.

[Deleted]

We put it up and put only kid safe ornaments on the bottom half. We tell her she can touch but not take and so far so good. She usually isn't that well behaved but she loves the tree and so far had been good with it.

[carawestt]

I don't even know where we're going to put it this year. We only have a 3' one that goes on a table but we have a bigger lamp on the table now and the tree won't fit there like it usually does.