Baby Escape Artists
September 8, 2011 7:44 PM   Subscribe

 
Stupid babies. >=[


oos a cute widdle baby you are you are yesyouare
posted by curious nu at 7:48 PM on September 8, 2011


I don't care how cute they are, don't breastfeed them in front of friends, so distracting.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:52 PM on September 8, 2011


Duck tape.
posted by Daddy-O at 7:52 PM on September 8, 2011


Meanwhile, in Canada...
posted by bicyclefish at 7:53 PM on September 8, 2011 [11 favorites]


Eponysterical? Or eponystericalest?
posted by mhoye at 7:54 PM on September 8, 2011 [4 favorites]


Oh man, one of the most terrifying moments of my babysitting career involved a safety gate. I had put the kid (barely two) to bed about an hour prior, and was downstairs in the living room doing homework. The kid had recently moved out of a crib, and had taken well to his new arrangement of sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but his parents said that sometimes he gets up and walks around. There was a safety gate at the top of the stairs.

Things were going along fine, everything was pretty quiet in the house, and I was sure he was asleep. And then all of a sudden, I hear a huge CRASH tumble CRASH tumble CRASH CRASH CRASH come down the stairs. Gotta be the baby gate. So I jump up and go careening around the corner to the stairway, and hear another, softer this time, tumble THUD SMACK tumble SMACK THUD THUD. I start thinking OH MY GOD THIS KID JUST THREW HIMSELF DOWN THE STAIRS AND IS NOW GRIEVOUSLY INJURED ON MY WATCH AAAAAAHH!!!

I get there, and there's no splattered baby at the foot of the stairs. It's one of those teddy bears with the hard, plastic face that "reads" books. And the little kid is just sitting up at the top of the stairs, happy as can be, Thomas the Tank Engine in hand, with a full arsenal of toys at the ready. Just waiting to fling them down the stairs.

These videos make me extremely uncomfortable.
BUT LOOK AT THE CUTE BABIES!!! eeeee!
posted by phunniemee at 7:55 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


These amateur hour parents know nothing about defense in depth...those two gates were way too close together.
posted by AndrewKemendo at 7:56 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


Yeah, if you're going to put up two baby gates like that, why not set them up vertically to make a really tall baby gate?
posted by JDHarper at 7:57 PM on September 8, 2011


Why is the mother in the Escaping link swearing at her baby?
posted by villanelles at dawn at 7:58 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


Every month is baby safety month
posted by Renoroc at 7:59 PM on September 8, 2011 [1 favorite]


Those are some really lousy baby gates.
posted by seventyfour at 7:59 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


The gate in the second video has a pet flap. It's hardly much of an escape when you leave it open.
posted by Jehan at 8:00 PM on September 8, 2011


The follow up videos should show childless people struggling to get through.
posted by procrastination at 8:01 PM on September 8, 2011 [4 favorites]


So, safety is a myth?
posted by Oddly at 8:10 PM on September 8, 2011


I don't care how cute they are, don't breastfeed them in front of friends, so distracting.

Are you being for reals???If you are, let me tell you buddy a screaming hungry baby is a fuckload more distracting than someone quickly whipping out a boob for the kid to eat. Do you find it distracting when friends of friends eat in front of you, too?
posted by smoke at 8:13 PM on September 8, 2011 [3 favorites]


Rise of the Planet of the Babies
posted by gwint at 8:16 PM on September 8, 2011


baby danger month is my favourite month. that is the month we arm the babies and unleash them upon our enemies.
posted by elizardbits at 8:17 PM on September 8, 2011 [11 favorites]


I’m pretty much for whipping out boobs, period.
posted by bongo_x at 8:19 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


My favorite.
posted by SuzySmith at 8:20 PM on September 8, 2011


I don't care how cute they are, don't breastfeed them in front of friends, so distracting.

Are you being for reals???If you are, let me tell you buddy a screaming hungry baby is a fuckload more distracting than someone quickly whipping out a boob for the kid to eat. Do you find it distracting when friends of friends eat in front of you, too?


Oh, christ, not this again. smoke, no he is not being serious. Brandon was referencing this ask and its resulting meta.

posted by phunniemee at 8:22 PM on September 8, 2011 [4 favorites]


Needs somewhat related video. (Warning: it's a pretty lousy stream, but it was one of the few copies I could find tonight. Stoopid YouTube does have just the song, though.)
posted by maudlin at 8:24 PM on September 8, 2011


Mine learned to climb the gate before she could walk, and the only reason she couldn't fully escape is because she would cry when she got stuck at the top, unsure how to continue.
posted by clvrmnky at 8:34 PM on September 8, 2011


Cooing over babies as they try to open the gates, and giving them attention and putting them on YouTube is just positive reinforcement, folks.

That's why you need to hit them with pepper spray when they get close to the fences. Works in Leavenworth, works in your home.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:34 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


Oh, christ, not this again. smoke, no he is not being serious. Brandon was referencing this ask and its resulting meta.

Criminy how could I forget that train wreck so quickly? Apologies to all for my lack of hamburger detection.
posted by smoke at 8:35 PM on September 8, 2011 [1 favorite]


Cute~

Freedom Rings!
posted by raymorphic at 9:20 PM on September 8, 2011


Why don't parents use play pens any more? Seems a more sensible solution.
posted by joannemullen at 9:31 PM on September 8, 2011


Yeah, if you're going to put up two baby gates like that, why not set them up vertically to make a really tall baby gate?--JDHarper

Yes, but this baby climbed up the gate. It might decide to keep climbing, with the result being a big fall on the other side. The only solution is many gates, all the way up to the ceiling.
posted by eye of newt at 9:45 PM on September 8, 2011 [1 favorite]


Why don't parents use play pens any more? Seems a more sensible solution.

Yeah, until the kid learns to climb out, and then either a) wreaks havoc, or b) falls on his head as he's climbing out.

That being said, a lot of these gates are not well installed.
posted by anastasiav at 10:04 PM on September 8, 2011


There is one where a baby takes a pillow, throws it over, and then climbs up and falls on the pillow.
posted by delmoi at 10:05 PM on September 8, 2011


Yea, only two of these babies escape from gates that have been properly installed, the dog door escapee and the two-deep climb over.
posted by MNDZ at 10:11 PM on September 8, 2011


Why don't parents use play pens any more? Seems a more sensible solution.

what anastasiav said.
posted by ambrosia at 10:12 PM on September 8, 2011


I am on the fence (ha) about whether I am happy or disappointed that the last video wasn't of Patton Oswalt and Michael Chiklis climbing over that double safety gate trap.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 10:25 PM on September 8, 2011 [2 favorites]


Yup, we're definitely descended from monkeys.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 10:49 PM on September 8, 2011


Watching more of these, the thing that impresses me the most is the problem solving ability of some of these kids. Not having kids myself, I didn't realize just how young they are able to figure out "lifting lever opens gate. Tab must clear gate before it can open, lift lever enough to fully clear gate."

Also, the squeezing under the gates is adorable.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 10:53 PM on September 8, 2011


Cute babies scaping from safety gates.

LIES! COMPLETE AND UTTER LIES!

Only one of those babies actually escaped from a safety gate (and even that one was pretty questionable). The rest of those videos show either idiot babies who momentarily open gates but fail to escape from them, idiot parents whose incompetent gate installation attempts turn safety gates in to DANGER GATES, or both.

To wit:

Baby #1 may have figured out how to open the gate, but only for an instant, and totally failed to escape.

Baby #2 may have escaped, but only because his parents are fucking idiots. There's a baby-sized hole in the gate AT BABY LEVEL. A gate with a baby-sized hole in it at baby level is a fucking DANGER GATE, not a safety gate, and parents who fail to cover said hole should be culled the fuck out of the gene pool.

Baby #3 also has parents who are fucking idiots, as they installed the gate ABOVE BABY LEVEL. This is a DANGER GATE and doesn't count.

Baby #4 spends 10 seconds figuring out how to open the gate and then another two-and-a-half-minutes apparently trying to shut it again, and never escapes. At the end of the video, the camera operator says "now Mommy's going to lock the gate" and then locks it. The baby is then unable to open the gate. Parents who have safety gates that are lockable but turn them into DANGER GATES by failing to lock them are also fucking idiots. However, babies who manage to open unlocked gates and STILL FAIL TO ESCAPE are even bigger idiots, and are definitely not "escape artists."

Baby #5 knows what fucking time it is: ESCAPE TIME, MOTHERFUCKER!!! Though admittedly it does appear that his parents are fucking idiots who don't know how or where to properly install a baby gate, given that it's at a weird angle and not even touching the wall at one of its anchor points.

Baby #6 also failed to escape, despite the fact that his fucking idiot parents installed a DANGER GATE that appears to be significantly shorter than he is.

THIS IS BULLSHIT. FLAGGITY FLAGGITY FLAG FLAG FLAG.
posted by dersins at 10:54 PM on September 8, 2011 [15 favorites]


I am shocked that none of those videos involved the study of babies behind fences. You know, the one where the female babies cried for their parents and were lifted up due to cuteness, vs. the male babies who would try to escape via building some sort of structure to get over the top of the fence. I dunno, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. I wonder if this sex-based study has been debunked yet.

I do not have a baby. If I had a baby, I would perform lots of adorable experiments on it and the videos on youtube. My baby would grow up to hate me
posted by lizjohn at 11:09 PM on September 8, 2011


p.s. September is Baby Safety Month

We need a month where babies are safe. God knows it's too much work the other eleven months.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:09 PM on September 8, 2011


The twins are older, but they just embarrass the baby gate with their speed.
posted by Gary at 11:59 PM on September 8, 2011


How 'bout a door?
posted by Kloryne at 12:18 AM on September 9, 2011


My sister was a real escape artist as a kid, a convential baby gate wouldn't even slow her down. Most memorably was the time my dad was laid up with a full leg cast and she managed to not only exit our house but climb up on my father's tow truck and from there make her way to the top of the boom. And my dad didn't have some fancy pants Holmes wrecker, it was a conventional rig. The top of the boom was 10ish feet above the ground. So there is my dad in the middle of December, on crutches because of his busted leg, trying to coax my 11 month old sister to climb back down the boom while the entire neighbourhood freaks out around him instead of getting a step ladder or something. Really it's amazing she made it to adult hood.
posted by Mitheral at 12:45 AM on September 9, 2011


Can anyone explain the gate with the baby-admitting pet hatch in it? Is it really one of the stupidest objects ever built by human hands, or am I missing something? Honour systems don't tend to work well with babies, who have yet to develop the faculty of reason but are all full of the faculty of cunning defiance.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:01 AM on September 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


This is terrifying... the infant menace, it must be contained!

The best policy is to simply keep the child duct-taped to the wall until the age of 18, at which time they may be released into the wild.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:13 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


I lived in terror of having a kid like this; thankfully, my kid is immune to the lure of wandering so he passed up many opportunities to end up dead/in the next county. We never even had a baby gate.

This probably means he'll never leave home, doesn't it.
posted by emjaybee at 5:25 AM on September 9, 2011


I have three-year-old twins who defeated almost every gate and childproofing mechanism we had (although "baby jail" worked pretty well before they could walk). Behind every escape, she was usually the brains, he was the muscle. If they couldn't figure out the lock itself, they figured out a way to get over or around it.

Now, when I hear this:
"Let's do teamwork!"
"Okay!"

it usually means they are not using their powers for good.
posted by candyland at 5:26 AM on September 9, 2011 [7 favorites]


Man, that first baby is like Sean Connery in The Rock.

In my experience, the only way a baby gate comes down is on top of the baby; their cries alert me to the problem.
posted by stinkycheese at 6:19 AM on September 9, 2011


It's clear dersins has not spent enough time studying the ways of babies. Babies are masters of psychological warfare. That first baby didn't fail to escape. That first baby coolly, calmly demonstrated how easy it would be to escape, laughed at the adult hubris that makes foolish caregivers think they could contain a baby, and then strolled casually away.

The message was clear: I can escape any time I want to. No frail device invented by adults will thwart my schemes. Those times you think I'm sleeping peacefully in my bed? I could be anywhere. The truth is, parent weaklings, I don't even care what's on the other side of that gate. I just thought it was time I reminded you who really wears the big kid pants in this house.
posted by BlueJae at 6:29 AM on September 9, 2011


Parents: Fucking Idiots.
Babies: Even Bigger Fucking Idiots.

re: dersins
posted by [insert clever name here] at 6:34 AM on September 9, 2011


Baby #5, Baby Jack, brought me out in a cold sweat.

We had a gate a lot like that, one of the ones with a frame that doesn't actually fix into the wall but stays in place by sideways pressure. It felt solidly in place. We put it in our about one-and-a-half-year-old daughter's bedroom doorway.

One night I hear an odd noise. Nothing from the baby monitor, I figure it's from outside. About thirty seconds it comes again. I head upstairs, just in case.

Like Jack does in the video, she had somehow pulled the bottom of the gate back, so it pivoted on the top two fixers, and had started to crawl underneath it. It had swung back, trapping her between it and the floor, by her neck. As she tried to move forward to get away, it pushed down harder on her.

The little noises I had heard were her throttled attempts to scream. Another minute or so and she'd probably not have had enough breath to make any more noise, and we'd have been oblivious that she was suffocating.

We took that gate to the tip the next morning.

Get baby gates with frames that fix into the wall, with unlock mechanisms that require adult strength to open. Please.
posted by Hogshead at 6:51 AM on September 9, 2011 [3 favorites]


Louis CK is right, babies are assholes.
posted by zzazazz at 7:00 AM on September 9, 2011


The best policy is to simply keep the child duct-taped to the wall until the age of 18, at which time they may be released into the wild.

Like this?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:03 AM on September 9, 2011


There is one where a baby takes a pillow, throws it over, and then climbs up and falls on the pillow.

Later that baby steals a motorcycle and escapes to Switzerland.
posted by elizardbits at 7:30 AM on September 9, 2011


This is why we crate trained our kids from day one!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:37 AM on September 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Can anyone explain the gate with the baby-admitting pet hatch in it?

I don't know how it was originally sold (for babies or pets) but I have that exact gate and we use it for our dogs. They can jump over it, but are well trained (mostly) enough not to, and the smaller door could be used for the cats were it not easier for them to just effortlessly levitate past it.

Shorter answer: I have no idea.
posted by quin at 8:15 AM on September 9, 2011


Oh Hogshead. I'm sorry. I feel your anxiety. That's the kind of stuff that haunts you forever...that chilling 'what if' feeling. I have a gate like you describe. We don't really need it anymore. Thankfully.

Anyway, I was following the chain of recommends on youtube and found this escape. It has baby's first spinal column. Who decorates their kids room with that
posted by hot_monster at 9:07 AM on September 9, 2011


?
posted by hot_monster at 9:09 AM on September 9, 2011


My kids are grown, but still I avoided coming to this thread* and watching the videos, because of the anxiety I thought it might induce. I am really glad that those videos didn't abruptly end with a crash, wildly flailing camera, and anguished screams.

*until I had exhausted all others
posted by Xoebe at 9:26 AM on September 9, 2011


Shitty baby gates, and poorly installed baby gates. The only real "escape" there was the baby that managed to climb over his gate. Which is why we don't use gates with handy toe and finger holds in our house once the baby was big enough to figure that out. The new gates are more expensive, but far more secure.
posted by antifuse at 1:11 PM on September 9, 2011


My dog was smart enough not to do naughty things right in front of me. If she'd wanted to get through her gate, she'd have done it when I wasn't standing there giggling.

Advantage: puppies!
posted by winna at 10:59 AM on September 10, 2011


I'd like to see you train your 10 year old puppy to mow the lawn and wash your car though. :P
posted by antifuse at 1:40 PM on September 12, 2011


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