How to Baby Proof a Piano: Fallboard Pinches, Lids, Benches, Pedals and Tip-Over

If you want to baby proof a piano, start with one fact: no source we reviewed covers pianos by name. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) do give advice on hinged lids, pinch points, heavy furniture and corners. This page applies that advice to each part of a piano by analogy.

Baby Proof Me sells no fallboard lock, lid prop or pedal guard. The one product tied to this page is the Clear Table & Counter Corner Protectors, for corners.

How to Baby Proof a Piano Fallboard

The fallboard is the hinged key cover on an upright or a grand. It swings down over the keys, and it sits right where a curious hand wants to go.

No source reviewed addresses piano fallboard child safety directly. The closest line comes from the AAP’s toy box page, which says: "Little fingers can easily become caught and injured under lids and between sliding doors and panels." The AAP is writing about toy boxes, not pianos. Applied by analogy, a hinged panel that closes over a space small hands like to reach is a pinch point worth treating with care.

Picture this: you step away to answer the door, and the fallboard is up with the keys uncovered. Nothing has happened. But for the next few moments, no one is watching that corner of the room, and the open fallboard can still swing down.

The simplest layer costs nothing. Keep the fallboard closed whenever the piano is not in use.

A lock on the fallboard is a job for the piano’s maker or a piano technician. No source reviewed tests such a lock, so there is no performance claim to repeat here. Ask the people who know your instrument what, if anything, can be fitted to it.

Door hinges and cabinet doors work the same way, and preventing pinched fingers around the house starts with noticing every place a panel closes.

Child Proof Piano Lid: Grand Lids and Prop Sticks

The AAP’s toy box page has more lines worth borrowing. It warns that "a hinged lid could fall on your child’s head or body while he’s searching for a toy." It says a toy box with a hinged lid should have a lid support that holds the lid open at any angle. And it says that if a box has no such support, you can install one "or remove the lid."

Those are the AAP’s toy box lines. They are not AAP statements about pianos.

There are two close piano equivalents. One is a grand piano’s raised lid, which rests on a prop stick. The other is the lid of a storage bench, covered in its own section below. For the grand, the habit that follows is plain: keep the lid down when no adult is nearby. If it must stay raised during a lesson or a recital, lower it afterward.

How the instrument’s own prop is built, whether it is worn and how it should be handled are questions for the maker or a piano technician.

One more layer is the room itself. CPSC’s childproofing guide says to use safety gates "to keep children from entering rooms and other areas with possible dangers." Applied to the piano, that means a closed door or a gate on the piano room when no adult is in it. If the piano sits in the living room, a living room safety guide is a useful place to check the rest of that space.

Baby Proof Piano Bench: Lid and Corners

Many piano benches have a hinged storage lid for sheet music. That raises the same two questions as the AAP’s toy box lines above: a lid that can come down, and fingers that can be caught under it. The AAP is not writing about benches. This is the same advice applied by analogy.

In practice, keep a storage bench closed. If the lid is heavy, ask the maker or a technician what support suits that bench, and do not rely on guesswork.

The hard corners are a separate issue. A crawling or walking child can fall against a bench edge, and softening an edge is the job of furniture edge bumpers. CPSC’s childproofing guide lists corner and edge bumpers "to help prevent injuries from falls against sharp edges of furniture and fireplaces." That is CPSC’s wording, and it describes a device that helps, not one that guarantees anything.

A bench is also a low, movable seat, the kind of thing a small child may want to climb on or pull up on. No source reviewed gives a figure for bench climbs or tip-overs, so none is given here.

How to Baby Proof Piano Pedals: Low and Within Reach

Pedals sit low. A crawler or toddler on the floor can reach them without climbing anything.

There is no pedal injury figure to cite and no pedal-specific fix to recommend. Baby Proof Me sells no pedal guard, and the layers that matter here are the ones already described.

• A closed fallboard and lid, so the piano gives a child less to explore.
• A watched room, or a closed door or gate when no adult is in it.
• For an upright, the stability points in the next section.

Picture this: you are folding laundry in the next room with the piano room door open, so no one is watching the piano. A watched room is the layer that makes pedals a smaller question. It is far easier to keep when baby-proofing your house room by room has already dealt with the other hazards.

If a pedal feels loose or the instrument wobbles when touched, that is a question for a technician.

Piano Tip-Over and the Top of the Piano

A piano is heavy furniture. No source reviewed gives piano tip-over figures, so none are stated here, and the CPSC figure below is furniture-wide, not piano-specific.

The furniture-wide picture is clear enough. CPSC’s 2023 tip-over report counts 217 furniture, TV and appliance tip-over deaths reported between 2013 and mid-2023, and 155 of them (71%) were children. The AAP says that when furniture falls on a small child, it "can crush or suffocate them under its weight."

The AAP also acknowledges what every parent of a climber knows: "You can’t always stop your young child from climbing. But you can stabilize the furniture that could hurt them." Its advice is blunt: "Please, anchor all your furniture to the walls." CPSC says to "Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to secure TVs and furniture properly."

That is advice for general furniture; no source gives piano anchoring steps, and this page gives none and recommends no hardware. Ask the piano’s maker, a piano technician or a mover how to secure that particular instrument. Pianos differ in weight, in how they are built and in what the wall behind them looks like. For the broader approach to the rest of the room, furniture tip-over prevention is the place to start.

What goes on top

CPSC says: "Children like to climb on furniture. For them, the home is a playground." It adds that you should "Remove items that might tempt kids to climb, such as toys and remote controls, from the top of the TV and furniture." The AAP lists heavy objects on top of furniture as a cause of instability.

Apply that to the top of an upright piano. Examples of items to clear from the top include:

• A metronome.
• Framed photos.
• A lamp.
• Stacks of sheet music.

Picture this: after a lesson, you set the metronome and a pile of books on top of the upright and move on. The top of the piano has become a shelf that is tempting to a young climber. Clear it each time the lesson ends, and keep anything that could fall or invite a climb somewhere else.

Corner Guards for Bench and Table Corners

CPSC lists corner and edge bumpers as a recommended device and says to look for bumpers that stay securely on. The Clear Table & Counter Corner Protectors are clear round bumpers made of BPA-free, food-grade silicone with a clear acrylic adhesive (0.5 mm thick). You apply one by peeling off the pre-attached film and placing the guard on the corner. They come in packs of 12 or 24.

They suit bench corners and the corners of nearby tables, such as a side table next to the piano. No claim is made that they fit a piano’s keyboard cheeks or case. The product page is the place for fit questions.

Check with the piano’s maker or a technician before sticking anything to a piano’s finish. This page does not promise that the adhesive leaves no mark, and pianos vary in how their surfaces are finished.

What a corner guard cannot do

A corner guard softens a corner. It does nothing for a fallboard pinch, a falling lid or a tip-over. No product here replaces the closed lid, the closed door or the anchoring question above.

Guards also come off. CPSC says to look for bumpers that stay securely on, and the AAP says small objects can be choking hazards or harmful if swallowed and to check floors regularly. Taken together, those two lines point to one habit: check each guard often, and take off any that loosens rather than leave it where a child can reach it.

The product page says the guards are not a toy and not a substitute for adult supervision. It also says to stop using one if it becomes faulty.

If a Child Is Hurt

Call 911 for an emergency. For any other injury concern, call your pediatrician.