strap your furniture

I don't have any babies that actually live in my house. We have one in heaven, we're pregnant with one, we're possibly adopting two, and one plays at my house every weekday, but technically, we don't have any that live with us.

All of that said, we want to take all of the right steps to keep our babies and other people's babies safe. Some deaths can be prevented. A little girl that I knew, crawled out of bed one day when she was supposed to be sleeping, climbed her dresser, and died when the dresser fell on top of her. Now her parents take every opportunity possible to hand out furniture straps and tell Maddie's story. You can choose to strap your furniture to the wall, and it could save your baby's life.

It's not even a difficult task. Matt spent an hour or so the other afternoon and strapped all of the furniture in our nursery to the walls. A dresser, half bookshelf, super tall bookshelf, and crib all neatly attached to the wall.

That's not a picture of our nursery, but this is what it looks like. One piece screws into the wall. One piece screws into the furniture (or double for the bigger pieces), and then you zip tie them together. I know, holes in your walls, holes in your furniture, and time. It takes a tiny bit of time, but imagine if you knew this was how your baby was going to die. You'd do it in a heartbeat.

We've already strapped the living room furniture too. I just want to take the time to make you aware that this is a preventable death, and you have the opportunity to save your child's life.

Here's a link to a pack of eight. If you have small rooms like we do, that can strap a whole room full of furniture.