Are you done painting your walls and assembling your furniture? While it seems you already have your new home in order, you still need to do one more thing. If you intend to make your home the safest place on earth for your young child, you must childproof it to make sure that your child will never get hurt while at home. But how exactly should you go about doing this?
Read the rest of this article and discover the ten ways you can protect your child at home!
Why Should You Childproof Your Home?
Before you put off driving to the hardware store to buy things like childproof door locks, you should know how serious child injuries at home are. According to a report, at least 2,200 children die annually from an accident they suffered at home. Moreover, the same report says that a staggering 3.5 million children get sent to the emergency room for injuries that commonly happen in homes.
Don’t let your child be another statistic! In the next section, learn how to prevent such unfortunate accidents from happening within the safety of your home.
How Can You Childproof Your Home?
Now that you have realized the gravity of the situation, ease your anxiety by considering these ten child safety tips. Many of these may seem like common sense but simple things like opening doors at the wrong time can lead to life-changing injuries. Ensure a safe yet conducive home for your child by reading these home safety tips below.
Put Safety Gates For Your Stairs
Did you know that falling down the stairs is one of the most widely reported causes of child injuries? A report shows more than 93,000 children under the age of five are sent to the hospital due to such injuries each year. You can significantly reduce the chances of this happening inside your home by installing a baby gate for your staircase.
Get Rid of Cords or Wires
By now, you may have discovered that toddlers are naturally curious about their immediate surroundings. While this curiosity may lead to cute and endearing moments worthy of being uploaded on social media, it can also result in injuries such as getting choked by wires. Don’t let your baby near your charging cables and power cords by doing some cable management!
You can use cable ties to keep them secured, but even these can become choking hazards themselves. So better use a box as cable storage and place it high above the ground.
Block Off Areas of the House
Small children are natural explorers. They unlocked an entirely new world when they learned to use their hands and feet to crawl. Unfortunately, your toddler may end up in the wrong places and put themselves in danger. Use a baby gate to seal areas of your home, like the patio door and rear doors which lead outside.
A childproof door lock can also do the same thing by securing the doors themselves. For instance, a childproof door lever lock can be unlocked using a lever installed at your height, making it out of your little one’s reach.
Keep All Poisonous Items Away
A report about child safety says that poison centres receive one million calls about small children getting poisoned every year. That’s a shocking number! But when you account for all the bottles of chemicals around your home, this statistic will become less surprising. Gather all of those bottles, especially brightly-coloured ones, and keep them somewhere high and secure.
Educate Your Child
Aside from putting hazardous things out of their reach, you should also educate your child so that they can keep themselves safe. You can teach toddler safety by demonstrating how to do things yourself. For instance, you can show how they should keep their little fingers safe from a closing door. Teaching home safety will have longer-lasting effects than installing child safety gadgets.
Create a First Aid Kit
Despite your best efforts to implement child safety around your home, injuries will be inevitable. When they happen, you should be prepared. Creating a first aid kit can help you treat minor injuries like burns and scratches, but can also mean life or death when dealing with more serious injuries. Before your child needs to be sent to the hospital, first aid will make a drastic difference.
Keep Your Floors Dry
When your child finally learns how to get up on their own two feet, you can expect that they will use this newfound ability non-stop. They will crawl, walk and run around the house with zero regard for their own safety. As such, you should keep your floors dry and free from liquid spills to ensure that they don’t slip and hit their head.
You can make your floors even safer by laying rubber mats around the house. They will be less slippery and can soften the blow when your little one accidentally falls down on the floor.
Cover Your Sockets
Power outlets are low-lying high-voltage hazards present in every home. Since they’re placed close to the ground, even a baby can reach one of them. When they put their little fingers in those high-voltage sockets, it can mean instant death. You can buy covers for power sockets online and install them on every socket in your home.
Cushion Your Corners
Your newly built furniture seems all nice until you notice the sharp corners. Conjuring mental images of your baby getting hurt by these sharp corners will surely make you shudder in horror. Luckily for you, you don’t need power tools to dull these corners. Instead, you can buy small pieces of rubber corner guards and install them on your furniture. The best part is that these guards are removable, so you won’t damage your gorgeous furniture in the long run.
Install Cabinet Locks
Cabinets may contain hazardous substances that you may want to keep out of reach from your children. Unfortunately, small children can easily open them as their doors are only held by friction or a magnetic lock. You can install a latch cabinet lock to keep them securely closed without being a hassle to open. You can also use these locks as a childproof front door lock to prevent your little one from accidentally stepping outside.
Final Thoughts
Home safety demands that parents keep an eye out for every hazard in their home. While it may seem like a tiring endeavour, child safety accessories can make it easier and less anxiety-inducing for parents. Once you have made your home child proof, you can relax and worry less about your little one getting hurt around your house.
Aside from making your home safe and childproof, you should also transform it into a fun environment for your baby. Head over to our playtime section and discover how!
