The best Furniture achors will give you peace of mind, but most importantly, keep Baby safe. But first off: I know the baby books might tell you to start babyproofing your house with furniture anchors, baby gates, sturdy playpens, and fiddly little safety locks the day after you find out you’re pregnant, but I’m here to set you straight. First of all, ain’t nobody got time for that when you’re spending all morning barfing. Second of all, you really don’t want to spend a solid year struggling to get into your own pantry and fighting with the child safety locks. Especially while your kid is still in utero, or is out but moves less than a sloth.
Once your child has learned to roll and is almost ready to start cruising, however, it’s time to spend a weekend with your toolbox and lock everything down. I’m talking, all the sofas, dressers, bookshelves (including the one in the nursery),the baby’s crib, TVs, hutches, and anything else that’s top-heavy and could injure your mini-monkey. And if you have kids under 6 and you still haven’t put up furniture anchors yet? Now you have homework for the weekend.
The sad truth is, every 30 minutes a child goes to the ER for furniture tipping injuries, dozens of which are fatal each year. So let’s keep your kiddo safe and keep you from having a heart attack every time they crawl near the TV.
Best Furniture Anchors
4our Kiddies- Zip Tie Furniture Anchor Kit
Let’s start with the best bang for your buck, shall we? It’s hard to go wrong with roughly $1/anchor, especially if you have a lot of furniture in your house that needs anchoring. And pretty much everyone who’s ever tried to undo a ziptie has been convinced of its durability. However, it is important to note that products like these with plastic mounting brackets, plastic zip ties, cotton straps, and other less-sturdy materials do need extra observation. They are great in a pinch since it’s better than nothing, and if you use a couple on a single piece, it increases the tensile strength. But they’re not as strong as the metal or steel cable products I’ll get into that later, but if you go with these temporarily, be sure to periodically check them to make sure they’re still firmly attached. (Note: You probably shouldn’t — er — put your kid in a drawer, either.)
Safety 1st Furniture Wall Straps
Safety 1st is clearly one of the best brands out there, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who already has some of their products in my home. This style of furniture anchor– where you screw one bracket to the furniture and one to a Wall with a strap in between– is great for customization. This way, you can adjust the slack on the straps to your comfort level. They might require tightening every so often, so keep an eye on these anchors, too.
WINKER L Brackets
Moving on to the Ol’ Reliable of the furniture anchor world, we have L brackets! These guys can be used to screw down furniture to the floor or at the top to the wall, depending on the furniture’s shape and what’s easier. As a bonus, if you don’t have too many pieces of furniture to secure, now you’ll have a few extra L brackets to hang shelves with! Because trust me, you’re going to wish you had more shelves to keep things up high and out of reach when your drunken sailor starts holding onto everything to walk around.
Quakehold Flat Screen Safety Straps
I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical of these at first. It’s adhesive with velcro for goodness sake. How strong could it be? Um, pretty strong. They’re a one-use-only kind of product, and once you’ve attached the sticky bits, they’re not coming off. Apparently, the only way to maybe get them off your TV or furniture (like if you have to move) is to heat up the adhesive with a blowdryer and scrape the thing off. On the upside, however, it doesn’t require any drilling holes in either your furniture or walls!
Best Furniture Wall Anchors
Mounting Dream TV Wall Mount
I know it’s not possible for everyone to fully mount their TV, but it’s definitely safer than simply anchoring the TV to a wall or TV stand. Plus, you won’t have to yell at your kid to stop touching the TV because they think it’s a tablet any more! This is the one I have personally and I LOVE it. It was super easy to hang up, it can pivot on a hinge to accommodate different angles around your room, and I haven’t had a single issue with it. Also, 28,000+ other people seem to agree with me, because it has a solid 4.8-star rating with over 25,000 reviews.
Family Care Anti-Tip Safety Straps
Now we’re really breaking out the big guns. A single one of the furniture anchors in this pack can withstand 400lbs of weight, which definitely includes your child, you, and all pets except Clifford the Big Red Dog. It also is made of all metal pieces for total peace of mind. One reviewer described how the professional child proofer they worked with recommends this style of furniture anchors above all others due to its durable materials, longer screws, and reinforced edges on the straps. (And yes, I was today years old when I learned that professional child proofers are a thing.)
SYOSIN Furniture Anchors for Baby Proofing
This is yet another style of furniture wall anchor, though its installation is largely the same as all the others. Grab a stud finder to make sure you’re attaching the furniture to the strongest part of the wall, and screw the brackets in. Ta-da. (If you have brick, stone, plaster, or other irregular wall types, Consumer Reports has a guide on how to anchor furniture to any kind of wall.)
This Syosin anchor is made of braided steel and also holds up to 40 lbs. The only difference in use between this one and the Family Care anchor above is that this one will cause your bookshelf, dresser, or whatever to stick out a tiny bit from the wall. That’s no biggie though, especially if it could mean saving your child’s life.
Quakehold Furniture Cable
Finally, we come to the Quakehold anchor. Though this is marketed as an anchor kit to withstand earthquakes, these products are commonly used for babyproofing & hold up just as well. This guy decided to buy the Quakehold and another, unnamed style of furniture anchor and had rave things to say about this product over the competition.
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