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I need some advice. DS is 17 months and is *this* close to figuring out how to open the child safety cabinet locks. He's already figured out how to open the front door child safety lock (on the third try). Any one else have this issue and how did you keep the chemicals under the sink from a curious, crafty toddler? I watch him a lot and I've started talking to him about how things under the sink are dangerous and one of the few no-no's in the house. He loves going to the forbidden cabinet and signing to me that it's a no-no area and dangerous *facepalm*. Ideas?

Chemicals high in a closet...give up on under the sink...

Move the chemicals to an upper cabinet with a keyed lock. Or to a closet with a good lock way up high, higher than he can reach standing on a chair, and put an inexpensive alarm on it. Or hang jingle bells on the insides of cabinet doors.

We used those Tot Lock magnetic cabinet locks that you need to use a magnet key to open them. They worked very well because you can't open the cabinet at all, not even to get your finger in, without the key. Kids tend to give up more quickly with them. Just make sure you have an extra one of the magnets in case you accidentally lose one.

We had mag locks, but honestly the whole time mine were in that stage I cut the chemicals down to vinegar, individully wrapped dishwasher pods kept at ceiling height and a thing of bleach kept in the garage. Medications were in a locked box, which my kids never even knew existed. It just wasn't worth it to me.

We don't use child locks in general. Both my boys were very verbal early on, so we started with "danger" for plugs, the gas stove, and places where little children shouldn't be. We do have some plug covers in the bedrooms, but not all over the house.

Generally, I've found that rules, even for one-year-olds, work better than locks. Ours have never been allowed to rummage through cabinets in the kitchen, so the under-the-sink stash is a non-issue.

Great insight, thank you! DianaG, he knows the rules but sometimes he's still acts like a 17 month old and pushes the rules. We keep all but 3 cabinets open for him to explore. He already figured out how to unplug the outlet covers and tried plugging prongs into them, so we just had to teach him to plug things in safely and since it's not a no-no he's lost interest rather quickly. We've tried 3 types of outlet covers and safety outlets to no avail. We watch him like a hawk. The MagLocks are a great idea. Talked to DH about this tonight, since DS can now open the "child-proof" lock on the trash cabinet. When I showed him this thread, he's dedicating this week to moving everything to the ceiling-hung storage in the garage. We are also going to put bells on the garage-side of the door to the attached garage (love that idea NotherBen). Medications haven't been a problem since we have so few and keep them locked above the toilet (I'm a pediatric nurse and see accidental ingestions FAR too often). Thank you and keep the ideas coming if there are others!

Give him some of his own tricky little boxes with compartments and lock and key sets and other fun things for fiddly fingers - and whenever he's working on something he shouldn't be, refer him to his own instead

We have an ugly but good lock under the sink, primarily for keeping the cats out now. It hooks over the two knobs and requires dexterity to operate. You push the center and side buttons simultaneously and slide the zipper part out to loosen, then lift the loop over the knob. So, it's two handed and requires coordination with strength.

We also used the magnet locks. We had enough of them installed that we have a fair number of the magnets, which we keep up high.