Since learning to crawl, Pierre has a new game. It involves going to the kitchen and pulling all the fridge magnets off the door. That's OK, they're all too big to swallow and he can't do himself any harm. That then progressed on to opening the cupboard doors and taking things out then slamming the doors. Hmmm, if he wants to take out the pots and pans, that's OK - all the cleaning products and dangerous things are up in a high cupboard - but he could catch his fingers in the cupboard door so needs watching. But his newest game is worthy of a baby version of TV show Jackass ! He pulls on the heavy drawers in an old solid oak cabinet until they fall out. There's nothing intrinsically dangerous in them - we're talking phone books and instruction manuals for various appliances - but the sheer weight of them would cause him some serious damage if they landed on his head.
When I was given the chance to review the Emmay Care Magnetic Lock Pack, it seemed like the answer to our prayers ! I'd never heard of Emmay but they appear to take safety issues very seriously. The Simple Safety Solutions website says: "Emmay have been working very hard over the last year or two getting their new range of Emmay Care baby safety products and child safety products. Emmay’s core focus has always been on quality and with their new range of baby safety and child safety products they have engineered quality into every item they make at the design stage."
The pack contains four locks, that can be used on cupboards or drawers, and one magnetic key. According to the manufacturers, it will operate through glass, wood, ceramic, tiles, laminates and non-ferrous metals and is suitable for doors up to a maximum of 26mm. There is an important warning to take into account when choosing where to fit the locks : "These child safety locks contain a powerful magnet. Do not allow the Magnetic Lock to come in direct contact with credit cards, video or audio tapes". It bears thinking about if you're about to fit one on the cupboard conatining your kids' prized VCR collection and risk wiping the whole lot out !
The locks are easy to fit - you will need to screw holes in the insides of the drawers, which can't be seen from the outside but it is something you'd want to avoid on a priceless piece of antique furniture ! - and they work really well. Pierre tried really hard to get into his favourite drawers and cupboards and totally failed. We even asked the older kids to try and they were very sneaky and ran off to get fridge magnets (I was impressed with that stroke of genius !) but they still failed.
However, this total efficiency is also a bit scary. If the only thing that will open them is the special magnetic key and they only give you one of them, it's worth more than the crown jewels and is something you definitely do not want to misplace ever, because if you did, you wouldn't be able to get into half of the cupboards and drawers in your house ! It's not even as if you can go and get a spare cut to leave with the neighbour in case you lock yourself out, so to speak ! In our house, we've stuck it to the top of the fridge out of the kids' reach but I would have preferred to have at least one extra spare key, just to be on the safe side.
They do do the job they are designed for very well though, so overall I'm impressed.
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £9.99 for 4 locks and 1 key (other packs available)
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these look good, my youngest is just getting to the stage of needing to babyproof everything!
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