My Daughter nearly set the house on Fire ..HELP ???

se999

Forgot to say when my two were young, we had a seperate kitchen, so we had a stairgate at the entrance to that. We did have kiddie locks etc on the cupboard doors. The open plan kitchen diners are wonderful when kids are older, but for little one's, it can be a problem safety wise.

toshkininny

Sorry if someone has mentioned this already, but one of the main concerns is her entering the kitchen without you realising, so why don't you lock the door and make it impossible for her to get in there if she does get up during the night.

keys_2

toskinny : I have mentioned earlier but not to worry
I have an open plan stairs leading into the kitchen from upstairs

viktory

keys wrote: »

The other morning my boyfriend came downstairs at 6.30 am and found the oven on fire because she had placed loads of plastic in there and a full bag of sugar along with whatever else {which I dont know because they were burnt to cinders } . Its a good job he is a fireman as I wouldve probably slept through and he recognised the smell .Otherwise neither of us would probably be alive now after the fumes would have killed us after another hour or so.!!!
As you can imagine her behavour is becoming very dangerous and I just dont know what to do with her...
I dont know what has got into her latetly but everytime she has ten minutes downstairs / upstairs on her own she decides to trash the house and doesnt listen to a word I say !!! This morning she decided to throw cereal and milk all around the living room carpet , even thow I have child locks on the cupboards whilst I had a shower .
I do not have a naughty step for her because in her room there is too much for her to do and also wreck , my stairs are open planned so its too easy for her to fall over and really hurt herself . But my patience is really running thin with her !!
So far I have stopped her watching dvds and cbeebies , Ive stopped all sweets / chocolate for a week . And yesterday I took her ice skating because she had been good ...But she still trashed the house again today . I do not want her feeling all I do is shout at her and I do normally praise her for good behavour , but I feel she just does not ever behave anymore
So your suggestions would be of great help to me , as she is perfectly behaved at nursery and at other peoples houses, and I realise it is just me she has no respect for !!

Smoke alarm?

ETA: Ignore me, I see you do have one. Good

charlea

Practically a lock on the kitchen door is a must, high enough up so that she cant get to it and unlock it if she can put a padlock on it also dont leave the house keys in the door at night, as she could easily open the door and get out of the house if she is that inquistive -

one thing that you could do is if you have a house alarm in your house they can often be set to go off on part /full basis in the house
that way if you have a sensor in the kitchen or in the hallway downstairs as soon as she goes into the sensors space the alarm goes off, but you can still move around upstairs go to the bathroom without it going off a few time of this noise is enough to put anyone off wandering around the house at night

if you dont have an alarm then you could also put one of those annoying ding dong door sensors on her bedroom door with the ding dong that you get in shops they are loud enough to wake you
maplin sell these things http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=alarms%20&source=15 for around a tenner or so even a simple door alarm that you fix to the kitchen door would be effective as well

they also do a Security Beam Barrier Alarm which as soon as the barrier is broken the alarm goes off these are around 15pounds you can have the reciever in your bedroom and set it on different volumes so that you can wake up if your daughter breaks the alarm

keys wrote: »

Sorry I thought I wrote her age ..She is 3 years old ..going to be 4 in March .
As she had closed the oven door the alarm didnt go off until my bf opened the oven door . And unfortunatelty I am a very deep sleeeper and always have been so I have been setting my alarms {clocks } to go off early in the morning just incase she has got up , which then I cant get back to sleep , which also adds to the problem of when I do fall back to sleep .
tanith : I have thought about a baby gate , but I already have one at the bottom of the stairs which she climbs over !!
Lotus-eater Yes I am really willing to be consistent and stick to a punishment I reprimand her with . Like I have stuck to no telly / dvds / treats etc . And also I have made sure when my dad took her for the day he stuck to this aswell . But to be honest she just finds other things to do , and most of the time apart from tidying up she does actually behave ok and is a happy smiley child .
floss2 No nothing I can think of has changed , and she loves going to nursery and the same people visit our house regulary and take her out etc

se999

Wonderful ideas Charlea, I wish they'd been around when my two were young.

One thing people seem to forget is that toddlers & young children are normally at least as intelligent as you are, they just don't have the experience to know what is sensible or not!

P.S. Forgot to say, triggering the house alarm, might not be a good ideas with the neighbours, each time the child goes on walkabout!! If it triggers the external alarm, waking the street won't be popular. But the security beam barrier idea seems better.

keys_2

charlea wrote: »

Practically a lock on the kitchen door is a must, high enough up so that she cant get to it and unlock it if she can put a padlock on it also dont leave the house keys in the door at night, as she could easily open the door and get out of the house if she is that inquistive -

I do not have a kitchen door { above posts }
Yes I learnt to take the main door keys out of reach early on due to a similar experience [ when she had just started walking }

if you dont have an alarm then you could also put one of those annoying ding dong door sensors on her bedroom door with the ding dong that you get in shops they are loud enough to wake you
maplin sell these things http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=alarms%20&source=15 for around a tenner or so even a simple door alarm that you fix to the kitchen door would be effective as well

they also do a Security Beam Barrier Alarm which as soon as the barrier is broken the alarm goes off these are around 15pounds you can have the reciever in your bedroom and set it on different volumes so that you can wake up if your daughter breaks the alarm

Great ideas I never thought of that , I will look into having the didng dong one . thanks alot for this idea ,as It would never have crossed my mind to do that . It sounds great for the price too

charlea

I agree but i think the neigbours would be more upset at a house burning down in the street
hell i would put an alarm on her door if i thought the house was going to burn down
you can get cheap internal house alarms as well not the ear shattering outside ones so that way they are only really heard inside the house

You can even get a stair pressure mat that set of an alarm when you step on it
One thing you could do as well in the meantime is to switch the cooker off if its electric just flick the switch on the wall or turn it off at the fuse box. She can put what she wants in the cooker she just cant burn the house down

What i use to do with my son when he was naughty (he is now 15) was make him sit on a chair in front of the mirror and look at himself god he hated that but it was very very effective this was before supernanny
and the naughty step

se999 wrote: »

Wonderful ideas Charlea, I wish they'd been around when my two were young.

One thing people seem to forget is that toddlers & young children are normally at least as intelligent as you are, they just don't have the experience to know what is sensible or not!

P.S. Forgot to say, triggering the house alarm, might not be a good ideas with the neighbours, each time the child goes on walkabout!! If it triggers the external alarm, waking the street won't be popular. But the security beam barrier idea seems better.

hurricanewyn

Hiya - I know this is probably really obvious, but make sure you go around at bed-time making sure everything is unplugged and switched off. If the cooker is switched off at the main switch a 3 year old would find it too stiff to switch back on.

toshkininny

keys wrote: »

toskinny : I have mentioned earlier but not to worry
I have an open plan stairs leading into the kitchen from upstairs

Sorry, that's what happens when you read first few comments and then skip a few!