Image source: Sisal and Seagrass

Home Safety Tips And How To Make Your Home Safe For Kids

Why is it important to make your home more child friendly?

Your home, whether you’re aware of it, or not contains many potential (and invisible) hazards to your child’s health and well being.

Reading this article will provide some basic home safety tips that will help to make you more aware of a few things you can do towards making your home better and safer for your young children.

100% Wool Carpets

While your child goes through their crawling stage, they will constantly be in contact with the floor.

That is why comfortability for your child needs to be a huge factor to consider when choosing your flooring.

As well as comfortability, though, you must also take into account the health aspect of the floor you choose. 

Therefore, choosing the right type of flooring is an important aspect of keeping your home child friendly.

Wooden flooring will be very uncomfortable for babies as it is extremely hard, so carpets are the more favored floor type.

Many synthetic carpets, though, carry various chemicals that can sometimes cause allergic reactions. 

The most child friendly flooring to choose from, therefore, would be a comfortable, natural flooring like a pure wool carpet.

This carpet is not only extremely comfortable, but it also reduces the chances of any allergic reactions as it is completely natural so should contain little to no chemicals.

Have a Designated Play Area

All children need to play, but more importantly, all children need space to play.

Without a specific space, children will tend to just use the whole house as a play area; this can make tidy-up time a very long, frustrating process.

To keep your house tidy and as child-friendly as possible, try to dedicate an area of the home just for playing and creativity. This could be a complete playroom, the corner of your dining room, or anything in between – the aim is to offer unlimited creativity in this particular area.

By permitting a particular area for playtime, it should stay more confined and reduce the chances of you finding random toys in the kitchen or other parts of the house.

In this designated area, your children will have the opportunity to play, explore and create; they will need a few items to help them do this:

–   Child-friendly scissors

–   Glue and sticky tape

–   Coloring pencils and crayons

–   Reading and coloring books

–   Egg cartons, cereal boxes, paper, and other recyclable materials.

Lock Up Cupboards and Drawers

There are lots of health hazards and dangers in your kitchen that you might not even be aware of.

A standard headache tablet, for instance, is no threat to an adult but for a child, it could be a choking hazard. 

Similarly, your cleaning products, which you may store under the sink, are nothing but cleaning products to you but to a child, it’s a tasty drink they’re curious to try – they don’t realize it contains extremely harmful chemicals.

Installing locks to your drawers and cupboards isn’t the most attractive addition to your kitchen, but it is essential to prevent many accidents.

You don’t need to lock every single compartment, but the cutlery drawer, medicine cupboard, and cleaning cupboard are three that definitely need some form of security.

Any other cupboard or drawer that contains dangerous items should also be locked up. 

Image source: Fresh Lawns

Artificial Grass

Artificial grass is becoming more and more popular, and the reasons why are obvious – it’s easily maintained, looks great, and has a wide range of uses.

But, how can it make your home more child friendly?

As children grow, they become more energetic, and there will be a time when they cannot contain their energy levels within the four walls of your home.

When this time comes, they will discover the endless possibilities of the outside. 

The problem is: gardens are muddy, and a muddy garden plus an energetic child results in a muddy home.

This is where artificial grass comes in handy; it has all the positive elements of natural grass: the way it looks, feels, and absorbs liquids, but removes all the negative elements like covering your child’s clothes in mud and grass stains.

Therefore, your children can play outside for as long as they like and when they finally come back inside, you know your home won’t be in any danger of getting dirty.

Have a Designated Gardening Area

Gardening is a very important part of a child’s life; it has brilliant developmental benefits that they’d struggle to learn any other way.

All senses are engaged when gardening, and this gives children a better understanding of their body as well as the wildlife around them.

Children can touch and feel the dirt seeds and flowers; hear the bees, birds, and bugs; see the beautiful colors of the plants, and smell the various scents of flowers.

Not only does it engage all senses, but gardening also encourages healthy eating, teaches patience and responsibility, improves organizational skills, and highlights the importance of looking after the environment.

Building your own gardening area isn’t as hard as you’d expect either: just dig up a large enough area, contain that area with a border of garden sleepers or a similar material, and fill it up with gardening soil.

Then, remove your garden waste using either grab hire or skip hire – dependent on your requirements. 

Make Certain Things Accessible

Children become very frustrated when they can’t reach things or do certain things for themselves.

Reaching things like light switches and door handles, for example, is vital for a child as it helps them become independent.

The more your child observes the things you do, such as open cupboard doors and put things in the bin, the more they want to it.

So, let them do it.

Leave a few cupboards unlocked in the kitchen – if it is safe to do this – and allow your child to open them up, or allow them to throw some recycled waste in the bin.

Once they know what it is and how to do it, they will become less curious and move on to something else.

If you don’t give your child these opportunities, their curiosity could become unsafe.

For example, if you don’t offer them a chance to put anything in the bin, they might choose to pull the container over – which could land on the child and injure them – just to see what’s inside it. 

Prevent Trips and Falls

Falls are one of the most common causes of accidents in the home.

Once your child is capable of crawling, it’s imperative you take extra precaution to keep them safe.

As soon as your baby is mobile, you need to install stair gates at the top and the bottom of the stairs.

Children are curious, so once they see their parents walking up and down the stairs, they will try to do the same. 

Gates are one method to prevent stair accidents, but you should also constantly check that nothing is lying on – or near – the stairs that could cause someone to trip.

As they grow up, children move quickly so ensure any damaged, or worn carpets are repaired or replaced.

Otherwise, this could be another trip hazard.

Finally, attach cushioned corner protectors and edge protectors on desks, sides, and coffee tables.

This will obviously not prevent a trip or fall, but it will help reduce the chance of a serious injury.

Prevent Burns and Scalds

Children burn themselves more often than adults do and the most common type of burn is caused by spilling hot drinks.

Even after 15 minutes of being made, a hot drink can still scald a child

To prevent scalds from drinks, remember never to pass or carry a hot drink over a child, even one drop can be painful.

Also, keep hot mugs away from the edge of surfaces, if they see it they’ll want to grab it.

Take similar precautions when cooking.

Pot and pan handles look just as tempting to grab as mugs do, so ensure the handles are turned away from the edge and are out of sight to stop the temptation.

 

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