Best Childproofing Tips for Your Home

Childproofing can be an important and great way to keep your small ones safe from potential dangers and harms around your home, but how much child proofing is really necessary to ensure your child’s safety around the home?

A great way to make sure that your home is safe for your child is to be proactive and install devices well before your child might come in contact with them, such as sticking a finger in a light socket or playing with plugs before they can even crawl over to your electrical outlet. Here are some of the most important spots in a home to pay attention to for childproofing.

Smoke detectors

Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors are not going to be something your child necessarily comes in contact with, but is always important for the safety of any home. Knowing that smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors are functioning helps to give peace of mind to parents that a home is safe.

More: Tips for Maintaining your First Home

Water heater

Very early on in your child’s life they will need frequent bathing. To help ensure that bathwater is never too warm for baby, it is a good idea to make sure that the water heater is set no higher than 120°F. This will help reduce the chances of scolding baby in super-hot water.

Crib

This is an area where your baby will spend much of their time once they are in a position to sleep in their own space. Before bringing baby home any crib or bassinet should have a flat surface with no pillows or blankets or stuffed animals, or even a crib bumper to prevent any suffocation hazards should a baby roll over in their sleep. Even if a baby is not yet able to roll over, these can still be suffocation hazards. Prepare for when the baby can start moving around in the crib on their own and make sure that there are no cords, wires, electronics, or any other items within reach from the crib. A good general rule is to make sure there’s nothing within 3 feet of the crib that a child can grab.

More: 5 Mistakes People Make When Decluttering

Stairs

Keeping kids from taking a tumble down the stairs is very important in multilevel homes. Access to stairs can be blocked off with the use of baby gates at both ends of the stairwell. They help to keep crawling and walking babies from entering areas without supervision. The most recommended gates from child safety experts are those that are permanently attached to walls making them more durable when baby begins to pull themself up. Often times small children will use baby gates to pull themself up to standing.

Furniture

Some furniture can pose a falling hazard as babies like to pull themselves up on things or even climb on things to try and reach something high that is intriguing to them. It is not uncommon and has happened in the past where babies have pulled down heavy pieces of furniture on themselves and sustained significant injury. This can be prevented by anchoring certain pieces that can be pulled down, or tipped, to the wall.

More: Decorating Tips for an Open Floor Plan

Cleaning products

Simple household cleaning products can look very intriguing to a young child that does not know what they are. To keep these harmful substances out of your child’s reach and prevent them from swallowing or playing in them, it is a good idea to keep all cleaning items inside locked up cabinets or cabinets out of reach.

Outlets and chords

They seem like fun playthings especially for little exploring fingers. Keep children safe from any electrical hazards by hiding cords and blocking off access to any outlets that they are plugged into as well as plugging up any outlet that does not automatically have brand new outlet safety measures in place. You can also update outlets to safer ones that automatically prevent a child from sticking their finger in. Remember any outlet that does not easily hold a plug will not easily hold a plug cover. It is just best to update old plugs in this case.

Kitchen

The kitchen is full of cabinets and drawers and many other things of interest to baby, especially when you are in there cooking. While you are focusing your attention on getting a meal on the table baby wants to be near you, but also is very curious about all of the fun things to explore in the kitchen and can easily get into something while your attention is shortly focused elsewhere. The kitchen has several areas to make sure that you baby proof including adding fixtures to every cabinet and drawer that you do not want the baby to be able to get into.

For more information on purchasing a home in Columbus Ohio please contact us anytime.