After baby-proofing all the kitchen cupboards, Leilani would watch us open them and want to check them out. Now that she can crawl, she would see us open a cupboard, crawl over, and we’d have to close it in her face. Then she would pull at the door, and we were afraid she would learn that the baby latches aren’t very strong, and then she could get into all the cupboards.
We’d read that the solution is to make a cupboard for the baby and teach her to open that one. So we emptied out the bottom shelf of our pantry cupboard and put some of her toys in there. She figured out how to open it and crawl inside, so we try to rotate the toys to keep her interested. She once got into the plastic yogurt containers and seemed to enjoy them, so we put them in for her, too. And finally, Mommy had a really good idea to keep her busy: she put some of her favorite puffed cereal inside a little see through plastic container.
After playing in her cupboard several times, Leilani knows the puffs are always in there, and she goes looking for them. Now that she knows to look for them, we put them all the way in the back. So now she has to rummage a lot to find them, and she throws a lot of stuff out on the floor. Once she finds the puffs, she plays with the container a while before getting frustrated, and then one of us opens it for her (and refills it later). We tried showing her how to open the plastic container, but she can’t do it yet–but we did find teeth marks on it:
