Tot Locks are available at Amazon.com.

I have a one year old son now and he’s already running around the house grabbing everything he can put is little hands on. We’ve already protected all the outlets and put up doorknob guards on most of the doors, but our cabinets were still fairly accessible to our son until recently. I did some searching for baby proof cabinet locks and while the cheap plastic ones seem to work initially, a lot of people complain about their toddler being able to figure out how to unlatch them pretty quickly.

I couldn’t use any cabinet knob locking mechanisms for my kitchen because my kitchen cabinets are builder’s grade from 1980 and don’t even have knobs. I shopped around for a while and I finally stumbled across a line of cabinet locks called “Tot Locks” so I thought I’d check them out. I picked up the Safety 1st Magnetic Tot Lok Deluxe Starter Set a few days ago and decided to give it a try.

These things are interesting because they can’t be seen from the outside and there’s no latch or mechanism which allows the cabinet to open at all when they are engaged. You need to use a powerful magnetic “key” to open the cabinets. This is great for a kitchen, but the magnet is pretty darn strong so I’ve already decided I’m not going to try to use them in my office and around my computer because magnets and computers definitely don’t mix. Yes, they seem to be that strong. Really.

If you’re thinking about trying these out, you may want to weigh the pros and cons:

The Good

• Very strong, very clever, baby will almost never get into your cabinets.
• Invisible so you won’t see them from the front of your cabinet.
• The installation instructions are okay, but they do include a few nifty features to help (see below).
• You can enable or disable the locks without uninstalling them.
• Key features is unique and will definitely keep out babies, children and even teenagers if they can’t get the key.

The Bad

• So strong and so clever YOU may not be able to get into your cabinets.
• A little bulky, so they may not work with small drawers or tight places.
• Have to drill six holes and install six screws into your cabinets.
• Have to rely on a strong magnet for a “key” which, obviously, you can lose.
• Some limitations on thickness of cabinet door and the cabinet door needs to lie flush against the cabinet frame.

Installing the first one of these took me about 30 minutes, start to finish, but it was a bit of a learning process. For the second cabinet I was able to install the lack in about 15 minutes or so, but I already had all my tools in front of me. And remember: this might sound a little tricky, but when you have all the pieces in front of you it’s really pretty straight forward. So let’s begin:

The clever Tot Lock stick on template on the cabinet frame. Drill screw holes where on the + signs.

The Tot Lock template on the back of the cabinet door. Same idea - Drill away, but watch your depth and don’t drill through your cabinet door!

1. Read Instructions and Gather Tools: You’ll need a screwdriver, an electric drill (with a 7mm or 9/32″ drill bit as well as one “small” drill bit) and maybe a little piece of electrical tape for this project. The first thing you really want to do is read the instructions over. And then read them again. And again. It takes a few times to really “get” what you’re doing. You’ll need to put a catch plate on the cabinet frame and a Tot Lock latch on the back of the cabinet door, so the two pieces have to match up perfectly. To do this you’ll have to apply some paper templates with tape on them.

2. Apply the template and drill holes on the cabinet frame: Included with the Tot Locks is a little piece of paper with two double-sided pieces of temporary tape on it. Each step in the instructions (and on the tape) are numbered, so you just have to sort of move through one step at a time. First you peel off the Tape 1 and stick it on your cabinet frame where you want the latch plate to go. You bend over the template and you’ll see two little crosses where your latch screws should go! You’re suppose to mark the crosses, but I’m a little unclear on how to do that. I just took my electric drill, loaded in a really SMALL drill bit, and drilled through the paper, leaving two little holes on my cabinet frame where my screws for the latch plate.

3. Apply the tempate and drills holes on the cabinet door: Okay, now that you have two holes for the latch plate on the cabinet frame, you leave the paper template in place and you pull off the backing of another piece of double-sided tape. The sticky side of the tape is now exposed to the room and will be covered when you close the cabinet door. Now you close the cabinet door firmly on the sticky tape and slowly pull the cabinet door open. The template should “unstick” from the cabinet frame and now be stuck to the back of the cabinet door in exactly the spot it needs to be stuck. Woe to you if make a mistake with this step! Tot Locks are designed to work with absolute precision. Any little deviation of alignment could really make them useless and require you to reinstall or at least fiddle with them a bit. Now you can drill or mark six more SMALL holes for the screws. Honestly, I don’t think you need to put in all six screws, but that’s up to you.

You still need to drill one BIG hole for the metal post of the latch to go into. This is the tricky/dangerous one because it is a big hole that could go right through your cabinet door. So be careful! The Tot Lock people even include a little plastic drill bit stopper, which is nice of them. Put your 9/32″ drill bit on your drill and install the stopper, but make sure you only leave the tip of the drill bit exposed. You want to drill deep enough to fit in the metal post, but you do NOT want to drill through your cabinet door.

This drill bit stopper doesn’t work if you don’t have a 9/32″ drill bit. That was my problem: 9/32″ is not a real common drill bit size. I have two different drill bit sets, each with 16 bits and I didn’t have it. I ended up using a 1/4″ drill bit and just kinda “rounding” the hole edges a little bit. I used electrical tape around my drill bit to mark my depth.

4. Screw everything in: All we have to do now is screw everything onto the doors. The instructions don’t mention this, but I use that small drill bit I keep talking about to drill the screw holes out a bit. I’ve learned that putting screws into wood of ANY kind is a great way to split wood. The way to avoid this is: drill holes before putting in screws. It also helps make sure that your screws will go in straight because they will generally follow the straight hole you created. Yes, this is an extra step in most projects but I now do it fairly religiously. I suggest hand-screwing all these screws in because if you over tighten you could crack the plastic around these Tot Lock pieces.

5. Test: You’re done, but be careful. Test it first! Tot Locks have a little red plastic bar on them that allow you to “enable” or “disable” the lock without uninstalling, which is really nice. Make sure the latch is disabled and close the cabinet door. Everything should go very smoothly. You may not even know it is there. Open the cabinet and make sure nothing is catching on anything. Now, engage the latch (move the red lever) but DO NOT close the cabinet door. You need to test your magnetic key to make sure it will open the latch. Place the key right on the front of the cabinet door and move it around. When you are directly over the metal post of the Tot Lock latch, the latch should click.

Just close the cabinet door after enabling the locks and now try to get into those cabinets. The one big issue my wife and I have had with these is sometimes we have to take the magnetic key and really move it all over the cabinet door until it is directly on top of the right spot for the Tot Lock to unlock. It’s tricky, but after a while you get used to finding the invisible spot where the key needs to land.

If you’re still having a hard time unlocking the cabinets you could always try putting a little piece of scotch tape or a light pencil mark somewhere on the cabinet door to serve as the spot where you have to put the key.

While I think these are a little bit of a pain in the neck to install (when compared to other childproofing systems) these definitely work much better and will keep your child out of anything. These are meant to be installed on cabinet doors or drawers, but unless it’s a big dresser I think these are too bulky and probably too difficult to easily install for drawers.

Overall I’m pleased with these and I’m going to continue to use the rest of these around my house. These will keep out toddlers, snoopy party guests and probably anyone who tries to break into my house and steal anything from under my kitchen sink!

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