Baby Proofing Shopping List Calculator

This works out what to buy and how many, room by room, and then totals it at whatever the items cost where you shop. Leave the price boxes empty and you still get the full shopping list, which is the part worth having on your phone in the aisle. Fill in the prices you can actually see and you get a real number instead of somebody else’s guess from a year ago.

Why it counts quantities rather than quoting prices

Because prices move and lists do not. A house with two bathrooms and a staircase needs the same hardware this year as last, but what it costs depends on your country, your state, whether you buy in multi-packs, and whether it happens to be a sale week. Anything printed here would be stale by the time you read it.

How many of each thing a room actually needs

The kitchen is the worst room in the house for a crawling child. Count on a lock for every low cabinet and drawer within reach, usually 8 to 16 of them, plus a stove knob cover set, an oven door lock, latches for the fridge and dishwasher, and covers on the countertop outlets.

The bathroom needs a toilet lid lock, a bath spout cover, a non-slip mat, and locks on the cabinet holding the cleaning supplies and medicine. Two bathrooms means two of each.

The living room is mostly about tip-overs and corners. Anchor straps for every bookcase, dresser and television stand, corner guards for the coffee table, cord wraps for blinds and electronics, and the largest share of the outlet covers, because that is where the lamps and chargers live.

Bedrooms need outlet covers, an anchor for the dresser, and window locks. That last one is the item people skip and should not.

Stairs take the two most expensive pieces in the whole job. Get a pressure-mounted gate for the bottom, and a hardware-mounted one for the top. That distinction matters more than the price: a determined toddler can walk a pressure-mounted gate out of its frame, and at the top of a staircase that is the one failure you cannot take back. Drill the holes.

Home size changes the count, not the list. An apartment might have 10 to 15 outlets in reach; a large house can be over 30, with more furniture to anchor and usually a second bathroom.

A note on shopping. Outlet covers, cabinet locks and anchor straps all come in multi-packs, and the per-item price roughly halves when you buy a pack of 20 instead of a pack of 4. Divide the pack price by the count and use that as your per-item figure below.