Disclaimer: The opinions within this post are strictly mine. This is not a Madison Mom’s Blog sponsored post.
Child safety locks are must for all parents. Yes, they’re a pain in the butt, but unfortunately at some point your curious infant/toddler will begin to open and close cabinets, and you’re going to need to find a way to keep them safe. The fact of the matter is most safety locks are terrible; they require you to screw them into the cabinet itself, they’re a pain to use, they look ugly, or they are woefully ineffective.
The First Child Learning Curve
So what do you do? Well, like all parents we used our first child as a guinea pig. Here’s what we discovered. First, the cheap solutions usually require you to use multiple kinds of locks to account for the different kinds of cabinets. Pull cabinets require one type of lock, dual swinging doors another, and single swinging doors another. We also found many of the locks couldn’t withstand more than a few months of use before they began to fail. Save your time and money and just skip these safety locks all together.
The magnetic locks from Safety 1st were better, but they require you to screw the lock into the inside of the cabinet/drawer. Not ideal, but not a deal breaker if you have older cabinets that have already seen their fair share of use.
These locks use a magnet to unlock the door from the outside. They work well for dual and single swinging doors, but are a pain to install on pull drawers. Fortunately our first child wasn’t into opening the pull drawers, so it wasn’t a big deal. But our second child is more inquisitive than our first, so we needed to find a solution for these kinds of cabinets. To make matters worse, we just literally finished a kitchen remodel in which we replaced all of the cabinets. So the idea of drilling into our nice new cabinets was not something I wanted to entertain.
That Magical Moment
Enter Safety Baby Magnetic Locks. ♫ [Fanfare music] ♫ Unlike the Safety 1st kit, these locks don’t need to be screwed into the fascia of the cabinet. Instead, they use super strong 3M double sided foam tape to secure to the cabinet. Everything else works the same. But unlike the Safety 1st brand, for whatever reason, these locks work well on all types of cabinets and drawers.
I’m not over exaggerating by saying these locks are by far the best locks we have used. They were simple to install and have held up well against both my young toddler and my preschooler. I also like that they give you a way to hang the key on the wall. Included with every key is a circular magnetic disk which has its own 3M adhesive tape, allowing you the ability to stick it wherever is most convenient for you. Safety 1st does not, so you’re on your own as to where you want to hang/hide that key. It just seems like everything was more thought out with the Safety Baby product.
One More Thing…
Here are a couple of pro-tips that I have found:
1. The 3M foam tape is super sticky. To save yourself from having to reposition the locking portion of the lock on the door/drawer, make sure you use a pencil and tape measure to figure out where to best place the lock. Don’t forget to account for the reveal of the door as well when measuring where to place the lock on the door.
2. Once you have finished placing the locks on all the doors use a piece of masking, or painters, tape to mark where the lock is on the outside of the door. It will save you time and frustration and is the perfect training wheel until you’ve memorized where all the locks are located.
3. Place the magnets that use the locks high enough that your older kid can’t reach, or you may find your snack drawer has been raided while you chased your active toddler around the room.
4. Safety Baby and Jambini magnetic locks seem to be the same product. After trialing the locks on a few cabinets, we decided to order more locks from the Safety Baby website. But when I opened the packaging, I realized these locks were made by Jambini. To my knowledge there isn’t any difference between the two other than the name.
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/safetybabyinc/
https://www.safetybabyinc.com/products/magnetic-cabinet-locks-4-1-set
https://jambini.com/products/magnetic-cabinet-locks-4-1-set
https://www.safety1st.com/home-safety/deluxe-magnetic-locking-system-8-locks-1-key-hs1330504.html
