These 14 simple tricks will help you create a toddler proof Christmas tree and a toddler proof house full of decorations. These tricks will keep both your decorations and your toddler safe without having to dim your Christmas spirit!
This post is all about creating a toddler proof Christmas tree and decorations for the little ones running around your home this Christmas season!
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Toddler Proof Christmas Tree
How do you create a toddler proof Christmas tree?
Our first Christmas with kids that were actually mobile was so exciting but also tricky to navigate. I remember my husband actually asking if we should skip the Christmas tree for the year!!
Since there was NO WAY I could spend Christmas without a Christmas tree, I started coming up with solutions to keep kids out of the tree and also out of my decorations.
While I obviously don’t want my toddler or baby hurting themselves or my decorations, I also knew there had to be a way to have both safety and my decorations.
These 14 tips truly do make it possible to have decorations EVERYWHERE even if you have little ones wandering around! Because moms deserve to plaster their houses in Christmas decorations too!
1. Get your toddler a felt Christmas tree
Getting your toddler their own tree is one of the best ways to toddler proof Christmas trees. Instead of telling them they can’t touch something, redirect and give them something that is all theirs to play. There are plenty of toddler felt Christmas trees to choose from online or you can DIY your own with a quick trip to a craft store!
Another fun option is to add circle pictures of family members (so it looks like an ornament) with a velcro strip on the back to help little ones learn to recognize different family members!
2. Get shatterproof or metal ornaments
When it comes to ornaments, make sure that your ornaments are either shatterproof or metal so that they don’t break if they do get knocked off the tree. We have a lot of metal ornaments from Wendell August on our tree. But if you have any breakable ornaments that you can’t bear to part with, definitely make sure they are way up high out of reach!
3. Keep the First Two Feet of the Tree Ornament Free
Even with shatterproof or metal ornaments, it’s best to keep the bottom two feet of your tree ornament free. While these ornaments won’t hurt your child if they get pulled off, you will probably be tired of putting them back up over and over again. Use other things like paper chains, popcorn chains, or paper snowflakes to decorate this portion of your tree if you like.
4. Involve Your Kids in the Decorating
Involving your kids in the decorating will give them a sense of pride and give them more respect for the decorations that are up. Help them choose, to whatever degree possible, where decorations will go and which ones to put up. You can also make paper snowflakes and paper chains with older kids to hang around the house. Or paint ornaments together to hang on the tree. In a house full of decorations they cant touch, give your kids a little control to help them enjoy the decorations too.
5. Replace the metal hooks on your ornaments with ribbon
The traditional metal hooks that ornaments hang on are a huge safety hazard for young kids. If one was to fall, it could easily get swallowed by a curious kid and result in an ER trip instead of holiday celebrations. You can replace the metal hooks with a ribbon of your choice or use these ornament anchors.
6. Keep bells on your tree as an alarm
Put Christmas bells on your tree to quickly know if one of your kids is messing with the tree. They function quite nice as a toddler proof Christmas tree alarm and they look pretty too. Knowing faster means you can put a stop to it faster and keep everybody and everything safe.
7. Put Your Tree in a Corner and Block it Off with Big Boxes
While you do have the option to put up a baby gate around your tree, creating your own with large boxes is a much prettier option. They don’t even have to have presents in them either.
Just grab a few large cardboard boxes from the store (or even the totes your decorations were in!), put something heavy enough in it that little ones can’t push it aside, and wrap it in paper!
I personally fill up my Christmas decoration storage totes will all my other house decorations that I take down for the Christmas season and then I wrap those up! Once the season is over, I unwrap them and switch the decorations back!
8. Don't Bring Out Breakable Heirlooms
Let’s be realistic…while there are ways to keep things safer, nothing is ever truly safe whenever there are kids running around. If you have something really special that you can’t replace, keep it put away for a year or two till the kids get a little older. These hacks are good but they aren’t perfect and you don’t want to risk your kids breaking something that is irreplaceable.
9. Get Battery Operated Candles
Candles are a huge part of the Christmas season. However, candles are really not safe to have on tables with little ones around. So while they may not smell good, battery operated candles are undeniably a much safer bet while you have young kids in your house.
The good news is that battery operated candles have improved a ton and these ones actually look real! And if you are really missing the smell of holiday candles, get a wax melter and keep it up high where your kids can’t get to it.
10. Don't Use Weighted Stocking Holders
Weighted stocking holders can easy get pulled down by babies and toddlers and land on top of them. To be safe, use a simple unweighted stocking holder or just lay the stockings underneath your tree this year.
11. Spice UP Your Outdoor Decorations
You may have to tone down a few of your indoor decorations this year but you can put all that extra energy into your outdoor decorations instead! Grab a few more strings of lights and maybe even some of the blow up decorations you swore you’d never buy. You may just become the best looking house on the block this year!
12. Grab a Few Holiday Pillows & Blankets
When you’re looking for decorations that can’t be broken by toddlers, Christmas pillows and Christmas blankets are a great option. They add some color but they won’t break when they are dropped or chucked across the room. They are also the perfect thing to cuddle up with for the 12 Days of Christmas Movies.
13. Make The most of the Mantle & Doors
Mantles aren’t simply for stockings when you have a toddler. You have to make the most of any space you have that is out of reach of little hands and display your favorite decorations in the ultimate safety of height. Display your favorites amongst tinsel or pine and sit back knowing they are safe. Adding wreaths to doors is also a great way to add Christmas spirit that is out of reach.
14. Get Decorations that are Actually Toys
Not only can you get a toddler felt Christmas tree, there are also plenty of cute Christmas decorations that double as toys! You can put a kids electric train around your tree, use this Melissa & Doug kids advent calendar throughout the month, get a kids’ nativity scene to help them learn the story of Christmas, put out this snowman stacking toy, or grab a few wooden Christmas puzzles to leave out on the coffee table!
Regardless of which one(s) you pick, there are far more options for toy decorations than you may have realized! I’m personally so excited to order the snowman stacking toy!
This post was all about helping you create a toddler proof Christmas tree and finding a way to decorate safely this holiday season. There’s truly is no need to skip the holiday decorations when you have little ones. It may need to be done differently this year, but your home can still be decked out for the holidays!
-Beautifully Busy Mom
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Meet the Author
This post was written by Monica, a mom of two who loves all things Christmas and wants Christmas to be filled with memories instead of a bunch of stuff.