Babyproofing A Tile Floor

I was really stressed about having a baby in a house with all tile floors. In this post I walk through how we babyproofed and how successful it was.

Background

The house we moved into a month before giving birth has only tile flooring. Right after moving in, I freaked out about the baby falling, hitting his head, and dying. I'd actually wake up panicked sometimes about it. I child-proofed, and after two years, there have been no accidents so I figured I'd share exactly what I did to childproof in case anyone else goes through this.

Materials

I used three types of items:

Rug

We have an 8x10 one but I can't find a link...I freaked out a bit about rug types being harsh on his skin, being toxic, etc., and this one has seemed nice. It is cotton. It also doesn't really show dirt which is great with a baby.

Rug Pad

This rug pad has been great. It is thick and soft enough to pad well with the rug on top, it has not damaged the floor, and the rug does not slip at all.

Foam Tiles

These tiles have been great also. They did not smell at all, but I did order them a few months before we needed them and let them air out in the garage just in case. They're really soft and you can find them in different sizes and prices if you search a bit.

How I used them

The primary usage was his play area. In our living room, we have the rug pad with the rug on top of it in between all of the furniture. Between the rug and the pad in heavily used areas, I also put some of the floor tiles to make it very soft. This is where he plays most of the time.

The other area where we used them is his nap bed. We have an extra mattress in the floor of one of the bedrooms where he's always napped. We used this because he will not go to sleep for his nap on his own so one of us has to lie with him, and our bed is too tall. We use a 6 inch memory foam mattress so it's fairly close to the ground. That mattress is in the corner of a room so only two sides are exposed. We put the foam floor tiles around those two exposed sides.

How they held up

I have no idea how many times he's fallen. Babies and toddlers fall all the time. For his bad falls that I remember though...

• three falls off of the couch - in all three, he fell from the couch onto the rug + foam tile + rug pad combo and was not phased at all...it really is soft
• two falls off his nap mattress - he rolled off of it all the time, but there are two times that I remember when he was playing and fell off while standing and landed on the back of his head...this would have been really bad if he'd hit the tile, but he landed on the foam tiles instead so it was no issue at all

Neither my wife nor I can think of any instances of him falling and hitting his head on the tile, so it worked out really well. He has fallen on a hard floor a number of times at daycare, but I have no idea how to prevent that.