When a baby is born and comes home, and as he starts to move around by himself, dangers at home become evident and seem to be lurking everywhere. When they are 7 or 8 months old, they love moving round all the rooms, touching everything, finding out what things are … they are our little explorers!
This is when all the alarms go off and you should have a think about how safe your home is for children.
But don’t go off the deep end, children also get used to recognizing danger and to staying away from it when they go to the kindergarten, school and other people’s houses. Yet it is important to take precautions as there are certain dangers that very young children don’t find it so easy to identify.
We have taken a look at the most common accidents at home and will now talk with you about how to avoid them. Take note of these tips and make your home safe, and at the same time explain to your children how to avoid danger.
Tips for creating a safe home for children
The most frequent and general accidents among children are intoxication, falling and choking. The main cause of serious children’s accidents at home is intoxication, almost always with medicine, cleaning products, cosmetics and other household products as the guilty party. You should store all these products out of their reach. If you don’t have anywhere to store them at height, put safety locks on doors and check they are always as they should be.
Falling from a height can also have serious consequences. If there are stairs in your home, use adaptable doors so that children can’t go up or down, because even if they are only crawling it’s something that always grabs their attention. Then there are windows and balconies. In this case there are numerous options on the market to stop children from opening windows and doors by themselves. It’s very important not to put chairs, tables or anything else near windows, so that they can’t get up when the windows are open.
There are things everywhere at home that can trap children, mainly doors and drawers. Doorstops, anti-finger-trapping devices and safety locks on drawers will be your best ally here. Toilet seats are also included and there are special devices to stop children from lifting them up.
Risks from burning worry parents because of the short and long-term consequences of the injuries it causes. There are protectors for radiators, special locks and protection screens for the oven, protectors and safety bars for the cooker that can be adapted to all kinds of oven on the market.
Tripping up and falling down. When they have just started walking, tripping up is a problem for young children as not only can they get hurt, but it can also make them insecure when learning to walk. Make sure that your rugs don’t slip and slide, or put something under them to stop them from moving, and use anti-slip mats in the bath or shower.
Other things they can collide with are corners on pieces of furniture, door frames, bath taps and many other things all over the house. Check each room for the risks your furniture or the layout of your house holds. You can buy protection for just about everything you can imagine, without having to take your house apart or get rid of pieces of furniture and other objects.
Don’t take risks – fix any piece of furniture that could fall over to the wall as it could crush your child. There are plenty of fastenings to stop furniture from falling on top of them, even flat screen televisions. Don’t discard the idea of fastening them to the wall, there are specific straps to do this and avoid accidents.
Plugs are another source of danger and children are very attracted by them. After all, they are at the ideal height for them to check out and they look made just to put your fingers in. As you can imagine, there are solutions for covering all kinds of plug holes that do not mean you have to take the protection off every time you want to plug something in.
There is a solution for each kind of risk, to keep your children safe and sound. But don’t forget that you are in charge of the house, and so below are some general tips just in case you forget:
- Don’t let children play with plastic bags.
- Keep them out of the kitchen as far as you can, because even if you adopt the appropriate safety measures it is one of the most dangerous places in the whole house.
- Never leave little children alone in any room, and if they are a little older, don’t leave them alone for too long without checking on them.
- Never leave them alone in the bath.
- Given them the right toys for their age and check that the toys meet safety requirements.
- Try to keep your house tidy, don’t leave things lying on the floor as they could fall over them, and don’t leave little things around that they could choke on.
- Take special care with medicine, cleaning products and cosmetics; in addition to keeping them under lock and key, if they are stored at height so much the better.
- At meal time use cutlery that is suitable for their age, unbreakable glasses, short forks that are easy to handle, and non-slip plates.
As you can see, there are numerous dangers in the house for little children, but there are also loads of things to protect them against these very dangers. Follow our advice and enjoy your children at home in safety.
