My home entertainment system is a mess - there are cables, remote controls, various units, multiple plugs, DVDs, Blu-Ray disks, corners, glass bits and other various components which make for a fun but very dangerous place for a baby to crawl to.
What can I do to help baby proof the system (besides do my best to make sure he never gets to it)?
You can buy corner guards to go on sharp corners.
Cables can be routed through cable ducts
And there are various ways of securing a television
However - and I guess this doesn't really answer the question - what I've ended up doing is not leaving my baby unsupervised near the entertainment system, and giving a firm "NO!" and then moving him away when he tries to touch it. This has actually worked and after repeatedly doing this, he now almost never goes near it.
Wires and delicate electronics need to be kept away from young children for a long time unless you're fond of frequent replacement and missing equipment. And of course there is the risk of the child getting hurt.
The most expensive answer is to replace the furniture. Many companies make entertainment centers like this one from Ikea. It hides all the equipment and wires and secures a flat planel from tipping over.
Wires from speaker systems can be routed through walls or hidden.
Barriers to access like baby gates work as short term solutions, but I haven't met anyone who tried it and was satisfied for more than a week.
Earthquake kits do a good job of keeping things from tipping over, but don't protect the wires or the electronics from poking and innappropriate usage.
Remote controls are a frequent target of young hands. They see us play with them all the time so it is only natural that baby wants to see what the fun is all about. If you have the typical home theater, you probably have accumulated 5 or 6 and keeping them all safe is tricky. Replacing them is a powerful universal remote like a Harmony can make life easier. Plus they're kind of awesome.
The lowest cost approach is to take away some items and pack them away until your child is older. There is life without television after all. :)
Some things I did:
The only child proofing we did was disable the power sockets in the hall and keep the knives in a high drawer. This was for a very good reason - we wanted to be able to take our children anywhere and not worry about them breaking something or hurting themselves.
So we watched out for them in the early days, and then educated them. So they never posted food into a CD player or pulled a cable or burned themselves on a fire.
This may seem like high effort but it is actually much less effort in the long run, and leaves you with kids that are safer everywhere. Don't hide things away from them - teach them what is dangerous and what is safe.
3 kids and 3 DVD players later, I'd say if you value it, lift it up high!
When my eldest discovered the DVD drawer, he would not rest until he'd yanked that sucker right out. The next, a slot loader was rapidly filled with pennies by the middle child. The last was more complex, a DVD was rubbed down with some kind of jam by my youngest and forced into the drive. additional DVDs were then forcibly inserted until the whole thing ground to a sticky halt.
Don't get me stared on the in car CD player, we've learned to live with rattles.
The solution? Netflix and Spotify.
My entertainment center is huge with cabinets and drawers and 4 lower shelf openings. The cabinets and drawers are easy to baby proof. For the open shelves that house the DVD and cords and power strips, this is what I plan on doing. I went to Michaels and told them I need a picture frame 12" by 22". I picked maple because it matched the entertainment center the best and they have an acrylic instead of glass that is shatter resistant that I'm going to have put in it. then I'm going to Home Depot and get those furniture clips. I can only describe the as they keep armoire doors closed and are quite resistant to easily opened. They come in 2 parts a male and female piece I guess you would call it. I'm getting 8. I think they cost less than a dollar. I'll attach the female parts to the entertainment center and the male parts to the cover I've made, that way I can push the cover on and my remotes will work. Anyway that's my idea I'll let you guys know if it works. Any suggestions on an idea improvement is appreciated.
My answer when this situation came up was to attach the TV to the wall and get an HP Microserver, all set up as a media centre. I've tucked it away where it can't be reached easily and the TV is attached to the ceiling (a wall would do.)
Even if they can reach it since it's a server it's just a black box and doesn't have any interesting lights to speak of - that means the little monsters don't have any interest in it. Everything is ducted in (not that there's much anyway.)
The only accessible point is the power button, which is disabled so to power the machine off you either have to go through the software or hold for 10 seconds. Even opening the drive tray is done via software.
I've copied all our media onto it and got rid of all the other boxes. As a bonus it also shares out media that I can pick up from phones, or raspberry pi's set up as adapters for the rest of the house. All the other boxes (set top box, games console, dvd and the like) are gone which makes cabling a lot less fuss. If you wanted to a box like a raspberry pi can be put in behind the main TV and even have the server elsewhere.
The biggest risk now is a toy hitting the screen, juice in the wireless keyboard or biscuits in the Blu-ray drive and none of that is a big deal.
All in it probably cost about the same as a decent Blu-ray player but is a bazillion times more flexible.
Check out this simple but brilliant baby-proofing fence for the entertainment system. Way easier to put up and take down and far less time consuming than some of the other options presented.
Just in case the site changes, buy baby gate fencing and place it around the entertainment system to prevent your little one from getting into trouble.
http://kotaku.com/5893829/baby-proofing-tips-for-gamers-turn-the-gate-around
