Toddler-friendly entertainment center?

How do you all manage to keep your TV, DVD player and whatever other entertainment equipment safe from toddlers' reach? We have a cheap simple stand with an open shelf for the DVD player and the TV just sits on top. The DVD player is on a sliding tray so the boys were always sliding that tray out and messing with it, sticking things in the DVD player, pulling on the cords, etc. We put a section of Superyard around the whole thing to block their access and that has worked well for a while. But now, we're tired of the ugliness and more importantly, Will has started climbing the Superyard and reaching over to mess with it all. I'm also worried that he's not only going to wreck the DVD player (e.g. if I have to go to the bathroom or am in the next room throwing lunch together or whatever) but that he could pull the TV over on himself.

Do any of you have an entertainment center that's toddler-proof that you can recommend, or a way to toddler-proof a simple TV/DVD stand? I'm thinking we might need to set aside some tax return money for this.

 

We also use the play yard to keep them from the tv and such so I'm not sure what other options are out there. I'm curious to see if anyone else has any ideas as I'm waiting for the day my boys start wrangling the play yard and get braver with the tv. :headbang:

 

Can you put a shelf of some sort behind it? We have our TV in built in bookcases, which is nice (although 32" is probably the max it will fit, but that's plenty for the size of the room). Right now we have one of the huge box TVs so we have the DVR and the DVD player on top, but when we get a new tv we'll put them on the shelf above.

 

Is it a flat screen or big older TV? We just got one for our flat screen and it has doors on the front with glass windows so you can put a cabinet lock on it and still change channels. Than I have a simple mounting thing to secure the TV to the wall so they can't pull it over. I tried to find the one we have, but it was on clearance at Target and now I can't find it there at all...the front is sort of like this but it's wider and was a little cheaper...but you get the idea about the doors, right?

 

This is our TV/center. We have drawer locks to keep them out of the small amount of DVD's we have in there and we went through of phase of them playing with the cable box and DVD player but they just learned if they want a time out then they can play with it...if not then don't touch. :laughing:

 

When twins turned around 1, I told my DH to put up TV on the wall and to buy entertainment center with doors so I would be able to lock it . So now we have TV mounted(sp?) into the wall with all cords hidden there too. DVD player and other stuff is locked.Therefore I have no headache 1 year later with good planning and some money invested.

 

We just got a new flat screen tv and were searching and searching for a good entertainment center that would hold a ton of dvd's, as well as keep little fingers off of buttons, but that didn't cost a fortune on our small budget. What we ended up doing was putting the tv up on our computer desk in the living room (we don't use our desktop anymore, we have laptops)(looks similar to this ), and I bought this that stands beside our tv to put our directv, dvd player, wii..etc in, along with all our movies, and I can lock the handles on the front of it. It looks like the glass is frosted but it's not, it's clear.

 

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I'll have to show them to DH and see what we can find in our budget

We have the same trike and Tonka dump truck!

 

My husband and I went through this, too. We hunted high and low and finally found a cabinet system at IKEA. Basically, our TV is mounted to the wall and all the system components are in a double cabinet with doors. We put child locks on the doors because our girls are curious and tenacious. It's worked out for us.

 

That sounds good (and affordable)! Do you by chance know the name of the model or have a link to the one you bought?