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babys and your components

Many of us have or had small children for example bellow 2 yo

They're in general free to do anything and can make themselves harm crowling onto the bunch of wires or touching naked tubes. They can also bite knobs, move movable components and so on...

My son is about to crawl and He will be visiting living room with my equipment quite often. I am not worried about my equipment pretty much since He won't be able to move even a single component -- too heavy. I worry about power cords, interconnects that are in the rear of my equipment stand. I worry about naked tubes on the mono amplifiers. I worry about speakers since thay can fall down when pushed.
On the other hand, I cannot limit Him to be in carriage or stroller or in bed while he's awake -- He has to walk and crawl.

It's not often the issue to keep separate room for that purpuoses(I've never seen that in my life). Most likely no matter how big or how many rooms is in your space, there is a wife in the family that will want to have it.

How do you manage this problem? What do you do to avoid accidents with babys?
128x128marakanetz
slawney
242 posts
 
My friend visited with his 1.5 year old "Max" last summer. Max is an out-going, happy toddler, that never cried or whined. We left him unsupervised for awhile until we discovered that he had developed an obsession with climbing to the top of my hifi rack on my second system (about four feet high). I did not have a fence to block him, so we sometimes had to tear him away from the rack. There were some painful scenes where he was screaming, crying, grabbing onto the control knobs to keep from getting pulled away from his favorite "mountain." On the last day, he succeeded in scaling the top. I will never forget the joy on his face when I saw "little Max" standing with his grubby feet on top of my turntable on the top of my rack. The parents were horrified, but we all laughed in the end. I have since thought that all babies go through a "climbing phase" as well as a "mirror phase" and a "crawling phase." A simple foldable divider, like the one you mention, marakanetz, might be the answer.
rec
328 posts
 
I have a 2 and 4 year old and large Cary 805 Monoblocks on the floor. They both seem overly attracted to the bright and hot output tubes. I had to make a tough decision, either to keep them out of the music room or run the risk of them hurting themselves. I wanted them exposed to music and make listening a family function so I bought a Jeff Rowland SS amp and put up the Carys(for now)We now all listen to music together(but not for long, the little ones are in and out my room all the time)My 2 year old every now and then will get behind a speaker and play with the speaker wire but she is getting better. Good luck.
macdonj's avatar
macdonj
118 posts
 
Marakanetz,

Luckily, my 15 month-old doesn't care for cords or wires. My wife found a power strip box at Babies-R-Us to secure most of the plugs in my system. My speaker cables only frustrate the baby because she trips on the occasionally on her trips from "here to there".

She did go through a phase where she couldn't leave the power switches on my amps alone. My wife and I were vigilent and told her "no" until she quit trying. Same went with touching the speakers (a real phobia of mine as an Apogee owner).

Finally, I allow the baby to operate the CD player via the remote. Obviously, I have to center the disc after she puts it in the tray, but the look of amazement on her face when the drawer closes and the music starts when she pushes the "play" button is priceless.
6bq5
62 posts
 
I have a 2+yo and a 4mo, The initial solution was to gate the listening room from free acess, and to allow supervised acess only. Additionally I have multiple systems, with most of the equipment-amps, pre-amp, and front end devices in a rack in a closet. THis removed most of the equipment from acess.
The balance becomes a question of disipline and trainning.
Good luck
jeffloistarca
1,004 posts
 
My kids are 7, 9, and 11 now. It's really hard, but here's what worked for me. You have to teach your kids the only things they can play with is their own toys, nothing else. If they want to touch or use anything else, they must ask first. They have to learn to respect what's not theirs and leave it alone. As I said, not an easy task. The upside is obvious, but one of the benefits is you can take your kids anywhere (including friends houses) and know they won't end up causing a problem. Childproofing your house is easier, but does not address the fundamental issue. The kids get older and more responsible but the nature of the challenge shifts and make being vigilant even more important. A good example is the internet, they cannot be allowed free reign to do what they want, there has to be some supervision. Am I an overprotective parent? Nope, but the inmates can't rule the cellblock either.
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