How to keep toddlers out of the trash
Toddlers frequently fight to keep garbage lids open so they can eat the contents, or they develop a habit of dropping household items like car keys into the diaper pail. To secure the bins, parents resort to installing child locks or placing heavy weights directly on top of the lid.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Keeping a heavy weight on top of the trash can lid.Did this help you?
- 2Installing a child lock on the kitchen trash can.Did this help you?
- 3Hiding safe food in a clean, decoy trash can to trick them into eating.Did this help you?
- 4Redirecting the urge by giving the toddler acceptable pieces of actual trash to throw away.Did this help you?
- 5Having the toddler practice diapering a stuffed animal and throwing away the pretend diaper.Did this help you?
- 6Making it a habit to check the diaper pail before searching the house for missing items.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“When we throw things away, we have to be careful and wait for the lid to close or he WILL try to stop it and get into the trash. He throws a fit everytime.”source ↗
“We have to keep a 15 lb weight on our trash can lid so our 11 month old can’t open it.”source ↗
“We 100% have a child lock on our kitchen trash. That's good eatin' as far as our 3 year old is concerned.”source ↗
“These days she seems to enjoy dropping everything into the diaper pail. I don't know its curiosity or an urge to imitate me, but whatever she is playing with, she takes it to the pail and drop in it.”source ↗
“Yesterday, I saw her myself, she put my car keys in the ball and then tried to rotate the lid which she couldn't.”source ↗
“I guess I need to start checking the diaper pail before looking everywhere else 😂 Has anyone else's toddler started doing this? How have you guys stopped them from doing it?”source ↗
“But somehow she has develped this habbit of throwing everything in the pail.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 3How to secure a backyard retaining wall or drop for toddlers
- 2How to hide trash cans with plants for HOA rules