I don't use extremely fragile or small ornaments and let the kids have at it. The older ones do the decorating so it is a hot mess of a tree, and I don't care. The base seems sturdy and tree seems to handle a toddler pulling on it.
Post by thatgirl2478 on Sept 28, 2014 12:41:56 GMT -5
If you have a play yard you can put the tree in it.
DD was 9mo for her first christmas. All we did was put the unbreakable ornaments on the bottom (which we were already in the habit of doing because of the dogs/cats). She pulled a few off, but never tried to do anything else. Again, it's going to depend on the kid, but our's was REALLY laid back.
Well this is giving me hope! DS will be ten months (gasp) at Christmas and is already very curious and into everything. I was anticipating not having a tree this year so I had four last year, lol.
Maybe I'll just do the main big tree in the basement family room. It's not somewhere he plays often.
Post by whitepicketfence on Sept 28, 2014 16:44:05 GMT -5
When the girls were younger, the tree went in a room that was blocked off with a baby gate. Two years ago I also bought a smaller tree that is "theirs"; it has almost all handmade and soft ornaments on it so that they can touch it, move them around, etc. The tree is only 4' tall and light enough that it won't hurt them if it did happen to fall.
This year, I also bought them a small (4') pink Christmas prelit tree for their playroom :/
DD was 9 months at her first Christmas. I was worried about her playing with ornaments and pulling the tree over. We placed all of the breakable ornaments higher than her reach and it was fine. After the first few days the novelty of it wore off and she really didn't pay much attention to it. We did the same thing the following year and just reminded her that the ornaments are not toys when she would try to play with them. We have one of those button extension cords to turn the lights on and off and she was more into that. We just hid it under the tree skirt and only turned it on and off when she wasn't watching us.
We have always had a tree with 9 month-5 year olds (and dogs). We were just in the room with them when they were younger (after 2, they were fine - we said "don't touch that tree" and that was that).
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”