As a new parent, I put a lot of time into baby-proofing my home. But the real work didn’t begin until my little one started walking—then it became a full-speed mission to find and fix every potential danger!
Having a 3D printer and the skills to design my own solutions has made baby-proofing easier, but some things just don’t make sense. The most frustrating example? My washing machine and dryer. The so-called “child lock” is only half effective—let me explain.
Power & Start/Pause Still Work
Many front-load washing machines and dryers come with a “child lock” feature to prevent your child from pressing buttons and messing with the machine. While it sounds like a great idea, it only works halfway.
On most machines, the child lock only disables minor buttons, like the soil level or dry-level. But major buttons, like power and start/pause, remain active. This means that even with the child lock on, your little one can still turn the machine off or pause it.
The two most important buttons aren’t disabled, which is why many manufacturers today have switched to calling it a “control lock” instead, as the original “child lock” was a bit misleading.
The Funny Part
What’s funny to me is that, at least with my washer and dryer, turning on the child lock disables the wash or drying settings.
Great, right?
But here’s the catch: those features don’t even work once the washer or dryer is running anyways.
Ultimately, the child lock feature on these machines is just about pointless. Yet, no one’s really talking about it, and the manufacturer hasn’t done much to fix it.
The good news? I’ve come up with a solution.
The Solution
The solution is simple, stick a cover over the buttons.
I’ve designed and sell a button cover that works with many models of front load washers and dryers that you can get here.
It’s a simple design, but very effective against short toddlers. It’s also boring looking, and if your child is like mine, out of sight – out of mind. The temptation to press the button goes way down when you cover the button. The design still allows adult hands (even hands of a big guy like me) to still get in there and press the buttons.
Why Do They Make The Lock Feature Useless?
I don’t know why it seems like every washing machine and dryer manufacturer makes the child lock feature so ineffective, but I can take a guess. Take it with a grain of salt—I’m often wrong—but if I had to guess, it’s the lesser of two evils.
You need the buttons to be disabled, but doing that means they don’t work when you need them. In a panic, would people remember to turn off the child lock? I know my current washer has touch-sensitive buttons, and it often feels like it takes forever to get them to work as I try to figure out if I’m pressing them right. In an emergency, I’m not sure how I’d manage, so I understand why they don’t disable the power and start/pause buttons.
Overall, it feels more like a “selling point” than a truly useful feature.
When I bought my washer and dryer, I didn’t have kids. But after having one and trying to use the child lock, I realized just how useless it was as I watched my child easily press the two tempting buttons on the whole machine.
Ironically, the minor buttons like rinse and soil level weren’t as tempting for them to press, since they didn’t really look like “real” buttons. That might be the key: manufacturers make the two buttons that stay active during child lock the most “non-button-like” ones on the whole machine. If they just made these buttons look less like buttons, I bet fewer toddlers would want to press them. Or, a simple cover would make a huge difference.
Until then, I have a solution that I sell here.
When making this product, I wanted it to be useful on many machines as possible. I went as far to go to my local stores to see how it holds up to the other models as shown in the images below.
I can’t guarantee it will work on every washer or dryer, but it should work on many models.
Another option to consider if you’re in the process of buying a new washing machine or dryer is to avoid the “front-loading” ones. The old-school machines had the buttons up high where toddlers can’t reach. Everything old is new again.