PSA: anchor your furniture

So, it was kind of hard for me to write this post. Probably mostly because of the fear of *parental judgement*. Dun dun dunnnnnn! But I'm getting over that and posting this, because there may be other parents out there who have either been putting this off, or didn't know about it. [Sorry this is kind of a Debbie Downer post, but I just don't want any other parents to go through this!]. Phew, here goes:

We had an incident earlier this year that really shook me up. Henry was in his room for his afternoon nap, and was just playing by himself before he fell asleep. Josh and I were downstairs and we suddenly heard a HUGE crash, followed by a cry of terror. My heart felt like it jumped in my throat, and Josh and I instantly ran up the stairs. I'm not sure if either of us have ever moved that fast in our lives. We threw open his door (thankfully he hadn't locked it like he sometimes does) and Josh lifted up the dresser. Henry was tucked halfway into the bottom drawer, and Josh couldn't see him so he was screaming "where is he?!". I pulled him out of the drawers and held him close. I didn't see any blood, even though the top drawer of the dresser had been bashed in by his head. Henry was still scream-crying, I was shaking and crying, and Josh was shaking... I looked Henry all over and tried to touch all his major bones to make sure everything was still intact. Miraculously, he seemed completely fine physically, and was just shaken up.

In my life so far, I don't think I have ever been more scared than in this incident. I also felt TERRIBLE, because this whole thing could have been prevented with a relatively simple fix. And it wasn't even a "fix" we didn't know about, we had heard about a similar instance happening a couple years ago. We just never thought it would happen to us: Henry hadn't ever climbed up any dressers or shelves before... he had messed with his drawers a couple times to pull all his clothes out, and we had gotten after him and clearly told him not to play with his dresser. And anchoring furniture requires holes in the wall, and we're in a rental. With all these justified-seeming excuses, we'd [obviously] never done anything about it. And that reason alone is why I am posting about it. Because YOU NEVER THINK IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU! But if it's something like this that is 100% preventable, just PREVENT IT! (Sorry for all the caps lock...it just happened..)

We moved Henry's dresser out into the hallway until I could get something to anchor it to the wall. I looked at Walmart and Home Depot but neither place had any sort of kit like what I had in mind. So I called Ace Hardware and asked if they had anything, and they said yes! They are called an Anti Tip Kit, and I believe they were about $10/each (I bought two, for the two larger pieces of furniture we own that could possibly tip and cause harm). They are rated to hold up to 400 pounds. The only tools you need to install it are a stud finder and a drill. Besides having Josh help me move the dresser back in the room, I anchored the dresser by myself. It took probably about five minutes, and that's including finding the power cord for the drill and charging it ;) What I'm trying to say is that the process of anchoring this dresser was EASY.

So if you haven't heard about doing this, or have been putting it off for whatever reason, please do it. Now. It could literally save your childs life. I am beyond grateful that Henry did not get hurt, and also that Josh was home when this happened (he lifted that dresser up like it was a pillow!). I know the outcome could have been much different :(



FYI, I found the product I bought on Amazon, here is the link if you are interested.