How to help your furry friend adjust to the new family member:

Bringing a newborn into the home is exciting, but it can also be a major upset for the family dog, especially if he’s used to free reign in the house. Fortunately, Canine behavior specialist Kelly Beasley of Camp Bow Wow can provide dog owners with easy tips and tutorials for getting Fido on his best baby-ready behavior:

• Bring your furry friend to the vet for a check up and vaccination update.
• Nip bad behavior in the bud. Visit an animal behavior specialist to make sure your pal knows how to mind his manners!
• Bring on the crying! Get Fido used to hearing baby noises months ahead by playing recordings and turning on baby gear like bouncers and swings.
• Get into a routine. Although junior may not arrive for another few weeks, get your furry sidekick used to baby activities to make the transition easier. A great tip is to carry around a toy doll and use the stroller on your afternoon walks.
• Make sure your furry pal does not get lost in the shuffle when you arrive home from the hospital. Greet him with a warm and calm welcome before introducing him to the newcomer.
• Lastly, don’t forget about your furry friend when creating your birthing plan. Make sure Fido has a place to stay, like Camp Bow Wow, which provides your pup with a friendly and warm home away from home. Camp Bow Wow also makes a great reprieve for overtired new parents.

For more information or to schedule interviews with an Animal Behavior expert from Camp Bow Wow please contact Kate Dowdle

Anyone with a toddler knows that they love to take the batteries out of everything. This was a minor annoyance until one day, when the little guy left the battery half-in, half-out and made it leak battery acid all over. We didn’t want to use duct tape, as it’s messy and ugly and one of our remotes is from the cable company (altho I doubt they are going to want it back after Lil’ Duck is through with it). Masking tape was just something else for the little guy to take off and stick in an odd place.

Gaffer tape, however, turned out to be the perfect solution. It’s black and thinner than duct tape, so it wasn’t as obvious, but it’s sturdy enough to withstand a toddler. I’m also using it to keep the fronts of my speakers where they belong (the little guy tried to take them off and poke in the cones) - since the speakers are black, you don’t notice the tape, and it isn’t damaging the finish or anything either.
Be sure to check out the rest of the Works For Me Wednesday tips as well as the rest of my blog while you are here!

From ParentHacks:

Instead of buying foam protectors for your table corners, cut slices in old tennis balls and wedge them on. This works great on our kitchen table which is exactly at eye level for our new walker. As an appealing bonus, it looks like pac man is eating our table.

….using duct tape (the home hacker’s faithful companion) to affix tennis balls to the edges of a kitchen island that’s just my son’s height, which saved my son a few good knocks on the head while he was there!

It’s a unique idea, but really, what baby isn’t going to go right for them, undo the tape, and stick their finger inside it, get it stuck, etc?? Lil’ Duck learned how to undo duct tape when he started crawling, somewhere around 7 months….. so I figure the life of this idea is VERY small unless your little one despises tennis balls….. the pac-man reference did make me laugh though, so that is something.

I hate baby latches. Either they don’t work, as in the baby can still open them ;), or they are so hard to get open that I contemplate unscrewing the handles to get into the cabinet or give up the contents as lost.

Anyway, what works for me on my double cabinets are simple baby links, normally meant as toys:

Just connect two of them to each handle (left photo - you might need an extra one between, depending on your handles) and you can detach them for easy access (right photo). It still keeps the little explorer out (altho I do have to occasionally tighten the screws on the handles from him yanking on them), even as he destroys the rest of my house on a regular basis!

Be sure to check out the rest of the Works For Me Wednesday tips too!

The baby will not leave our remotes alone, not only does he have to use them to turn things on and go channel surfing, but he also has to pop the backs off and take the batteries out of them. Aside from being incredibly annoying, it also quickly became dangerous when he took one halfway out and it overheated and started leaking acid, fun fun. Anyway, he peels off regular tape and we didn’t want duct tape ruining the cable company’s remote, but we found the perfect solution. Gaffer tape. It’s also black, so it blends in nicely with the rest of the remote. He hasn’t gotten to any batteries since (and boy is he mad about it too, hee hee hee).

He can reach the countertops. Not just reach as in stick his hand up and grab stuff off the edges - no, he’s been doing that forever. Reach as in he figured out that his little table can be used as a booster to the upper world.

I come into the kitchen to find my child standing on top of his little table, happily reaching for everything on my cluttered countertops. Scissors, pill bottles, everything else that we have been desperately trying to keep away from this child, now all within his grasp. He is cackling his little head off, of course, delighting in this new world that he has discovered.

Where to put the forbidden items now?? I have a 20 foot ceiling in our great room, and I’m contemplating hanging baskets from the ceiling…. it started with picking things up off the floor, then off low tables, then off the edges of tables and counters and out of all my low bookcases and cabinets. Now I’m quickly running out of space to put the non-baby items.