DH and I decided against a baby crib b/c of two reasons...
1) none of our friends liked them/used them...
2) the few friends that did use them said it wasn't worth it after...


Our entire home is open to the kiddo's. OS never crawled and went straight to walking. We had boundaries of places he could/couldn't go and let him know that. He was pretty much allowed everywhere except the fireplace (b/c of brick) so as soon as he walked over the fireplace I'd tell him no, which he'd think about and then he'd either walk away or try climbing up. If he climbed up he got scolded and moved. He learned quickly what hitting under your eye on the brick felt like. Never went near the brick again.
YS crawled and liked going everywhere so it was more of the same thing. once they realize I meant no and pulled them away from where they wanted to be they realized it wasn't worth the effort.
I have a very old oven and it's a double wall oven. The face of the oven gets super hot so I was very clear on them not touching the oven while I was cooking. They still did it a few times and learned what hot meant.
We never hid things or placed items higher/off the coffee table etc. We just worked on the kiddo's knowing what's allowed and what's not. Takes a bit of time but works great esp when going over someone elses house that doesn't have a gate or fragile items everywhere.
As for cooking, my bottom drawer in the kitchen was full of toys so while I cooked they either stood by me on a chair (starting at about 1 year old) and watched or "helped" or they played with the toys on the floor...

We use the gates (obviously) but we don't have issues at other people's houses. Like right now the older kids are at Louis' grandmother's house where the kids have access to every room in the house and we don't have any problems. I think for me though there are just too many potential problems with the set up of our house to where I don't want to take the risk so use the gates for my own peace of mind.

The problem I found is when kiddo's DON'T have access to the full house (friends, grandparents) and don't understand not to go where they aren't allowed :) My InLaws don't like the the kiddo's in their formal living/dining room. So we made the kitchen the cut off. Took a few times and the kiddo's learned. My nephew couldn't get it. My MIL had such a hard time keeping him from going there and finally made an obstacle so he couldn't get there.

I have no issues if other ppl use them, we just went a different route. We also tend to visit other ppl/go away for the wknd etc quite a bit so having them learn physical boundaries was easier for us. :dunno:

Same here. Also, with having so many children at such varying age levels, its hard to tend to them all at once.. I can't be watching the crawler while mopping up grape juice in the kitchen, for example...And now we'll be having another! Yikes!! Of course I will be expecting the oldest to help out a little with crowd control.. :whistle:

Never used a gate, took the same approach as K did. Didn't child-proof the house either. Tried the gate once, very early on, and it was more trouble than it was worth! Now, if I'd had more than one kid, maybe we would have, who knows? :dunno:

We never blocked off rooms. Just staircases until they were old enough to climb/walk up and down on their own. We've never had anyone fall down our stairs! Yet.....

Baby gates were only used for Stairs in my house..... everything else was well let him drop that TV on his head... Hurt Didn't it betcha won't do that again.... oh well betcha wont' do it a third.... Shirl this one's gonna be an idiot..... (Shirley aka Shirl being my ma.... and me being hte stubborn baby)

yep... didn't childproof the house either :)