0:19 - What precautions should I take with my toddler when decorating the Christmas tree?
0:40 - Decide between a real tree and a fake tree
1:53 - Next thing is picking out lights
2:46 - One general rule and for the ornaments
Hi, everyone. My name is Harper Jones with Bow Tiger and you are watching our once monthly segment, Ask Harper. Now in this segment, I take a question or questions from our viewers, and I try to answer them with my suggestions or different things that I do with my own lifestyle.
So I wanted to take this question from Janice out of Pennsylvania today. Janice wants to know, "What precautions should I take with my toddler when decorating the Christmas tree?" Well, Janice, I'm happy you asked because I actually already have my Christmas tree decorated for the season. So I just want to go over a few different points that I have when picking out your tree, decorating your tree, etc. with a toddler.
Now, the first thing that you want to decide is between a real tree and a fake tree. I'm just going to say with having a toddler in the house or small children in the house, animals or pets in the house, it's just easier to go with the fake tree. The issues that you have with a real tree is when the... Although it smells amazing, it really smells amazing, the real tree, it does shed. The needles do shed, they fell onto the floor, they make a big mess, and that's a big mess that some toddlers and small pets also love to play with.
So that's one issue that we have. That's not necessarily a safety precaution, though. But with these needles falling to the floor and it being a real tree, this tree does have some sap to it. Now that sap is mildly toxic. With it being mildly toxic, we don't want our children or our small pets ingesting any of the sap, the needles, of course, of the tree in the event that it's going to make them sick.
To avoid all of that, you can go to the store, buy yourself a fake tree. It can even be pre-lit, which really helps. The ooh and the aah is just plugging in the lights for the little kids. So don't worry about not being able to have a real tree. Just go with the fake tree and make it a little bit easier on your family throughout the first couple of years that your toddler is toddling around.
The next thing, okay, the lights. I did mention that some trees come pre-lit, some don't. When picking out lights, you just want to make sure that you're not using outdated lights, you are using newer lights. And these lights now, like on my tree, these lights do not get hot. They're made with a plastic that will not get hot regardless of how long they're left on.
So if you forget to use the timer or if you forget to shut the tree off, you do not have to worry about your toddlers being burned by the lights anymore. Make sure that those lights are to-date and also teach your child that touching the lights, it's not really something that they should be doing. It's not a toy. Teach them that the lights are just like the ornaments, they're not to be touched. And if we do this with our super little, they'll just become accustomed to looking at the tree, oohing and aahing, over the tree, but knowing that the tree isn't necessarily something they want to touch.
Onto the ornaments as well, I have one general rule and it works wonders, and that is no glass ornaments on the bottom half of the tree.
All of the heirloom ornaments that my family has, any ornaments that I find maybe for my daughter, I put at the very top of the tree and I allow her to put them at the top of the tree too, but then this way they're not touched the rest of the season. I know that they're super safe because they're not at reach with my toddler. I like to let my toddler mainly decorate the bottom of the tree.
She can decorate it with any of the plastic ornaments that we have. And then also, I like to make sure that the ornaments do not have a lot of glitter on them. A lot of the times the ornaments will come with lots of glitter. The glitter gets onto your hands, and then where does that wind up? Ingested in your toddler.
So make sure that you don't use too many glittered ornaments. We want them all to be plastic or they can be wooden at the bottom of the tree and all of your heirloom or glass ornaments at the top. So those are my suggestions on decorating your tree this season. I hope that everybody does have a great holiday season, and we'll see you back next month for another segment of Ask Harper. Thanks, guys.
