Important Hints for Childproofing Your Home
One of the important elements of child safety is providing a safe environment for the child to play. Your child’s little hands are going to go into almost everything that he sees. And the worst part is that he is liable to put things in his mouth.
Did you ever realize that many things meant for personal use and things that you normally use around the house are potentially dangerous for the child? Even the harmless looking drawer that the child can open poses a danger to him as his fingers can be stuck in it. Moreover, there are certain areas in your house that are extremely dangerous for the crawling baby.
Basic Childproofing Guide
The first thing to do for childproofing your house is to go through all the rooms and check what all can harm your child. For identifying potentially dangerous areas, you need to go down to the level of your child and see things his way.
- The electric outlets are baby’s eye level are potentially hazardous. The baby is liable to push his tiny fingers into them. Buy inexpensive electric outlet covers and block all outlets.
- Pay attention to cords that may be hanging loose. These include electric cords leading out from appliances on tabletops. Blind cords that the baby can reach out to a veritable death trap as the child can choke while playing with them.
- Install child safety gates on stairs to prevent the baby from falling down.
- Make sure that there are railings on stairs and anywhere else where there is a risk of the child falling down. The baby’s head can easily be stuck in the gaps between two vertical posts. To prevent this, ensure that the gap is not more than five inches.
- Make sure that the fireplace has a grill so that the baby remains away from it.
- Install child safety locks and latches on all cabinets and drawers within the child’s reach. This should be done on all drawers and cabinet doors even if they are empty.
- Put all sharp objects, cleaning supplies, medicines and anything that the child can put in his mouth in drawers and cabinets that are locked.
- There are rooms in the house that you would not want your child to go into on his own. While pressure gates serve the purpose for some of them, on others you may want to install door locks. To keep the child out of the kitchen install a pressure gate but for restricting entry into the garage and on the opening to the swimming pool a wall mounted gate should be preferred.
All these are areas that need your special attention for readying the home for the baby when he starts to crawl. Of equal importance is to keep items of daily use away from the prying hands of the child. These include scissors, pins, coins, buttons, letter openers and anything else that the child can swallow or has the potential of causing harm to the baby.
Article courtesy of www.ChildProofingTips.com - Child Safety & Child Proofing Advice for the Busy Mom
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