Baby Proofing- yes or no?

Question

I've spent the better part of my morning wondering if baby proofing is really necessary. My LO will be mobile soon (any day now we expect the crawling to begin) and I keep thinking "should we baby proof now?". I also get asked if we have baby proofed yet like it's an absolute must and people seem shocked that I'm procrastinating. We live in my parents home-a renovated 200 year old enormous farm house complete with a staircase, a million doors to be opened, 4 bathrooms to be explored, about a thousands electrical outlets, and more cords for our million devices than I can count (tv, Alexa's, lamps cable boxes, game consoles, omg the list goes on). We would have to invest most likely hundreds of dollars to fully baby proof this house with outlet covers, toilet lid locks, baby gates, cabinet locks-there's a LOT of cabinet in the kitchen. So how extreme should we really be with this? Husband doesn't think it necessary at all, my mom suggests baby proofing everything and I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't ever plan for her to be roaming around unsupervised so why would I need to baby proof anyway? 
So what are your thoughts? Most important things to baby proof and which products are basically made to scare us all into buying them? I see our house as full of dangers, but if we just baby proof it all (i.e. Wrap the entire house in bubble wrap) how will she ever learn what is okay to touch and what's not? Can't we just teach her what's ok and what isn't?
**EDIT: we also have the hurdle of my Dad being handicapped after being severely burned. He only has 3 fingers on one hand making most tasks difficult. Furniture I'm definitely willing to anchor but I just don't know if locking the cabinets is going to work for us because he already had a very difficult time opening things with the 3 fingers on his right hand (all 5 on his left have been amputated). Does anyone have any suggestions for cabinet lock styles that are still kind of easy to open?

Answer

We have never baby proofed per-se but obviously if they started getting into things they shouldnt we would move them or lock it etc.

Answer

Start with the outlets. The first thing my kid did when she could crawl was immediately go for all the outlets. And at a mimimum lock the cabinets with cleaning products or anything harmful. You can add the rest later. We never did toilet seat locks, I don't know what the point is for those.

Answer

Outlet covers, kitchen and bathroom cabinet locks (i like the magnetic ones), gates for staircases. These are the essentials. 
I also have a wood stove in my living room that is on a tile platform that I put a huge gate around. The edges of the tile platform are sharp like a knife. I put the nicest gate I could find that blends in with my living room around that since it’s a focal point. Other than that, baby proofing doesn’t cost very much.

Answer

They don’t get “over” the outlet thing until they’re over 2 so save yourself the headache and buy a $10 pack of 50 outlet covers on Amazon and do that at least. My son was FASCINATED by outlets. As far as preventing them from opening every single cabinet and door, we only put locks on the ones with dangerous items like cleaners. The rest of the time we just tell my son “no” or let him explore.

Answer

We have a 2yr old and a 9 month old. We keep the bathrooms lock and the babies are not allowed in the kitchen so those rooms aren't baby proofed. We anchored our TVs to the wall and put in electric outlet covers. For a while we had the TVs blocked off with baby gate play yards but the 2yr old started climbing over and that was more of a hazard. The hardest thing was getting use to keeping all our little things, remotes, cellphones ect out of their reach.

Answer

Start with what they can get to first. We kind of baby proofed as we went and are still baby proofing-my son is 18 months. We started with outlet plugs and things that were lower that we didn’t want him in and worked our way to the cabinet locks as he started getting into the exploration stage after he was walking. Now he’s tall enough to reach stuff on tops of tables and counters so we are having to work on that. He isn’t quite able to open doors yet, which is a benefit for us bc we can store things behind closed doors that we don’t want him into but it won’t be long! It’s hard to really know EVERYTHING you need to do until they start getting into it when you don’t want them to.

Answer

We are only doing the cabinets with cleaning supplies in it.  With is two. And I did plugs.

Answer

I have honestly never baby proofed. The only thing we had to worry about was our stairs to the second level and we already have a gate there because of our dogs.

Answer

We haven't baby proofed much yet, besides a few cabinets. I think those are important for your own sanity. My sweet daughter enjoys pulling EVERYTHING out on a daily basis. I'm not worried about her safety so much as the exhaustion of putting things back all the time and not finding things because she has "reorganized" 😑

Answer

I just  baby proofed cabinets and drawers. Cuz I was lazy to clean up mess every hour

lol

Baby Proofing- yes or no?

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