The Mainello family is in their split-level home in Brunswick. The couple created custom baby guards like this door to accommodate their daughter and dog Tripp. 

The Mainello family—including wife Jen, husband Matt, 16-month-old Madelyn, and dog Tripp—in their split-level home in Brunswick. The couple created a custom baby protector to accommodate their family. 

The Mainello family is in their split-level home in Brunswick. The couple created a custom baby protector to accommodate their daughter and dog Tripp. 

The Mainello family is in their split-level home in Brunswick. The couple created a custom baby protector to accommodate their daughter and dog Tripp. 

The Mainello family is in their split-level home in Brunswick. The couple created custom baby protection products to accommodate their daughter Madeleine and dog Tripp. 

A 6-month-old baby boy chews on wires. Don't worry about the power turning off during shooting.

The door used to protect the stairs. Shot with Canon 5D Mark 3. rr

The baby reaches for the power socket, but the power socket is protected by a child-proof power socket cover.

Preparing for the baby's arrival varies from person to person, but one of the biggest concerns for apartment residents and homeowners is to prevent babies before they happen.

By 2025, the market for security products including car seats, baby monitors, baby doors, socket covers and corner protectors is expected to be a global industry valued at 2.9 billion U.S. dollars.

The combination of the crowded product market and the natural instincts of parents planning ahead gives families expecting a family face a choice: invest in every product that has received a five-star rating, or wait and experience the life of a growing baby, and in the process Adapt to the living space.

"I'm a bit paranoid and always think about the worst, but my husband is much more relaxed," said Jennifer Mainello, who lives in Brunswick with her husband, 16-month-old daughter, and their large rescue dog Tripp. "I bought a lot of baby protection products, but quickly realized that we needed to implement our own system to adapt to the style and state of our house."

Before starting their family, Mainellos purchased a complete fixed upper, with the idea that these projects will be completed in their own time in a DIY fashion. The first step for the couple to perform a baby check was to accept that the house had not been completely renovated when their daughter arrived.

There is another person in the house who needs adjustment.

"We love our rescue dog, and we live his way," Mainello said. "He is naturally protective, so we want to make sure he knows that this little girl who entered our lives is someone he should protect, not an enemy, oh, does he know it now."

Mainello said that the baby protective equipment she bought was rarely used, but when her daughter started crawling and walking, the family still needed other items, such as baby gates. She chose a magnetic lock system to protect the kitchen cabinets, and her husband used his passion for carpentry to create a half-door custom door to protect their daughter from the stairs in their split-level home, and it was designed in such a way that the dog Also comfortable.

"Many people don't think about their pets and the adjustments they make to new people when they join the family," Mainello said. "These doors are great because they allow my daughter to walk freely, and Tripp can still stick out her head to interact with her without having to enter her private space."

For families without skilled handymen or families looking for baby protection products that match a particular style, local options can be used.

"Most commonly, we replace existing stair railings with new railings with smaller openings and add custom doors to the existing railings," said Colin Roy, founder and owner of Round Lake Forge, LLC. "Current building codes require that there is not enough space in the guardrail (what inspectors call a railing to prevent falls or injuries) to allow a sphere of 4 inches in diameter to pass through, which is the average size of a baby's head."

Roy said that many old houses were built according to previous building codes, which once allowed greater spacing, leaving families in a situation where children might fall from railings.

As a bespoke store, Roy and his team copied the railing pattern on the new gate for a more seamless and practical appearance.

"We made and installed the baby gate so that it can be removed without any signs in the future," Roy said. "In my opinion, this can save homeowners a lot of money, while also giving them the opportunity to match the current house design." 

Except for the custom door Mainello used to provide her home with a baby certificate, she said that this is an invisible investment, and professional dog training allows her to rest assured before taking the child home.

"I was always worried about how to bring the baby home to the dog during pregnancy. When we finished training and preparations, I finally saw them interact, which made me burst into tears."

For the Jeanmaire family in Clifton Park, once their 15-month-old child started walking around the house, their knowledge of the baby also changed.

"Before becoming a mom, I thought that baby proofing was just covering the socket and adding ugly plastic cabinet locks in the kitchen," said professional wedding and event planner Kelly Jean Meyer, who took a toddler and a second child. "Once my son started walking, we bought these two things, but he didn't even notice half of them."

Jeanmaire bought baby gates for the top and bottom of the stairs, but within a few months, her son learned how to open them. "We have taught him to go up and down the stairs safely, and now we leave the door open most of the time," she said.

Jeanmaire's approach is to reimagine the existing furniture layout to maximize the space for babies to play, even if it compromises the layout of traditional living spaces. Recently, she rearranged the living room sofa so that it no longer faces the TV directly, but leans against the wall to make more space.

Jeanmaire said: "When you need to make the existing layout functional instead of focusing on the things that can be purchased to protect the house, baby certification becomes more difficult." "Toddlers need to have enough space to remove toys from Push from one room to another without too many obstacles."

She is grateful for her oval furniture, such as coffee tables and dining tables, which do not require corner protectors to prevent her baby from being hit on his head by sharp edges. When buying any new product, Jeanmaire makes sure that the fabric is easy to clean, that the furniture has no sharp edges, and is strong enough not to fall over easily.

"It's hard to predict how babies will interact with any space," Jean Meyer said. "And some of the spaces you use most may look more like a game room than a living room, but in the end it can reduce worries and provide them with more safe gaming space."

For some parents, the intense marketing of infant protection products or peer recommendations does not always affect their handling at home. For Latham mother Alexandria Cook of three children, it is her own childhood memories and maternal instincts that lead the trend.

Cook said: "When I was pregnant with my first child, I was overwhelmed by the baby protection products on the Internet and thinking about how my mother raised me and my two young siblings." "Without these measures. We are very good for most of them."

Cook left her registry free of baby protection products and vowed to make a decision when her child reached that point. Today, she has a 7-year-old son, a 3-year-old daughter, and a 20-month-old son. Her position on baby proofing has not changed.

"In most cases, we didn't really take things seriously," Cook said. "We closed the stairs and locked the cabinet under the kitchen sink where the chemicals were stored, but that was all."

Cook noticed that if she and her husband took a more casual approach around the house and didn't draw people's attention to things that couldn't be touched, then her three children would also avoid contact.

But even after Baby No. 3 and the minimum infant protection for each crawling toddler, Cook admitted that there are occasional urges to change things and protect the entire family. She sometimes feels pressure from social media and admits that this may cause some parents to re-guess their decisions when seeking approval from others online.

"This is exactly what works for us," Cook said. "We are still very cautious with our children, but I think that excessive baby protection in some ways will deprive us of precious teaching time with our children and make me more like a helicopter parent. I want to avoid this."

Cook also stated that she did not let the children influence her design aesthetics at home. She has established rules to protect certain rooms and furniture (such as not taking food out of the kitchen), but will continue to decorate and maintain her home in a style that suits her personal taste.

Now that her children are getting older, she continues to raise them with her husband in a safe and caring way. Cook believes this simple method is the key to her success.

"I think we should go back to the basics.... I don't want to lose my intuition because of what I see or read on the Internet. We are all afraid of messing up, but we should focus on being the best version of ourselves. This is not perfect -And have the confidence to do what is right for us and our own family."