Child Proofing Your Home
Child poisonings are most common in children between ages 3 and 5.
Photo: ADAM.com
This is part one of a five part child safety tip series. Keeping our kids safe is a priority of mine. Child proofing your home can bring us to feelings of safety but when there are infants and toddlers present danger can lurk at every corner.
This post is designed to assist you in considering some problem areas, every house is different, I’ll try but I know I will not covering all of the issues to be concerned with. Some are obvious and some are not so obvious.
Proper supervision is the best thing you can do to keep your child safe; to minimize hazards, it’s necessary to use a combination of securing items, supervision, and common sense.
Here are some things for you to consider:
Photo: www.rmplumbing.net
Bathrooms:
- Keep all electrical appliances [hair dryers, radios, portable heater] away from sink and tub.
- Have GFCI outlets installed.
- Store away and lock up all toxic substances and install a safety lock on the medicine cabinet. Do not trust the prescription caps to secure your prescriptions.
- Toilet bowls can be secured with specialty locks at Children’s specialty stores and websites.
- The waste basket should be stored in a base cabinet and locked.
- The laundry chute or hamper should be secured or moved to avoid a baby getting trapped in it or fall through it.
Consider a rubber backed mat on slippery surfaces.
The most common source of bathroom poisonings bathrooms is:
- Vitamins containing iron
- Aspirin or acetaminophen
- Topical ointments and sprays
- Tranquilizers and sedatives
- Cold preparations
- Rubbing alcohol
- Almost any prescription taken improperly
Bathtub Safety:
- This is one area where children lose their lives on a yearly basis to drowning and it can happen in an inch or two of water.
- Have a plumber check and adjust the thermostat on your water heater so that your tap water is no more than 120 degrees F. Burns from scalding water is a common injury and EASILY avoided.
- Never leave your child during a bath. [Not even for an instant, e.g., to answer the phone]
Stay Safe ~ a concord carpenter
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