Basic tips on baby proofing your home

Busy parents need solutions for baby proofing the house and not a bunch of marketing ploys. Child proofing is definitely not a one time deal, but starting with the basics and tailoring a plan that specifically suits your home will ensure your home remains a safe haven for your children.

The National Safe kids campaign does a great job at outlining what essentials you need to look into when baby proofing your home. They might not all be what you think, and many of the ideas (based on actual accidents involving children) are easier to fix than you might think. As consciousness is raised – children, your children- will become safer!

The kitchen is full of hot hazards. Keep hot foods and liquids away from kids. This includes your morning cup of coffee. When using the stove, equip it with knob locks and try to make a habit of using the back burners. Remember that tablecloths, placemats and cords all look attractive to young kids and can easily be pulled down. When you are cooking try to keep kids away as much as possible. It is a bad idea to allow them to sit on countertops or remain right under your feet.

The water heater should have an anti-scald device or be set at under 120 degrees. It only takes 3 seconds for a child to sustain a 3rd degree burn. Remember that even medicine on the top shelf could kill a child. Lock them up and put them somewhere that your child will not be curious.

The toilet seat lock is intended to keep the lid down and prevent accidental submersion drowning incidents. The bath tub should be clear of razors, soap, cleansing agents, and cosmetics to ensure they do not get accidentally ingested.
More Advice for Child Proofing Your Home

Be sure to purchase and use a new crib or at least one that you are certain is free of lead paint and has slats that are no more than 2 3/8 inches apart. The mattress should fit snuggly into the frame of the baby bed. Never place the crib near window or where a child can reach cords from drapes or mini-blinds. These items can cause strangulation.

Your home is not baby proofed until you have working fire detectors installed. Never underestimate the huge risk you are taking by not using a smoke detector. Cover all outlets with safety switch plates and use safety gates properly around the home to ensure that your children are kept out of unsafe areas.
The Most Important Factor in Baby Proofing

Baby proofing is never complete until competent, adult supervision is provided. Make sure that you have emergency numbers like poison control handy and never leave a child unattended. If you must leave the room – use baby monitors to give you an extra set of ears. Supervision is everything. No device, gadget or product can protect a child that is not being watched. Accidents happen quickly! Stay alert and remain on guard.If you think something might be dangerous – it probably is!

Tips and advises on toddler safety, childproofing your home and ensuring child safety outdoors

Childproof your home for toddler safety and some helpful tips on safety outdoors. Keeping our toddler safe is a big part of our job as parents. But it can be tricky to balance a young child’s desire to explore everywhere and everything with a parent’s need to keep the child safe. As parents, we know that toddlers often forget the rules about safety. And scolding them can make the forbidden item or place seem even more attractive. We want to enjoy our children, but if we spend most of our time watching out for their safety, then no one is having fun. Although childproofing is not a substitute for parental supervision, it substantially reduces the likelihood of injury.

Here you will find some useful tips on toddler safety both indoor and outdoor :

TODDLER SAFETY AT HOME:

Children can injure themselves in the blink of an eye. You could turn your head away for a moment and the child could pull down a boiling pot of food, or swallow something he could choke on. It’s hard for parents to anticipate all the potential dangers or safety problems around children. The trick to keeping a safe environment for your children is to stay one step ahead of them at all times. By spotting dangers before an injury happens, you can protect your children from harm and protect yourself from stress and heartache. The first step in providing a safe environment for your child is to prepare your home properly:

Ensuring toddler safety in the KITCHEN :  

- Keep matches and lighters out of reach
- Place safety latches on all doors and cabinets, especially where cleaning products and medicines are located
- Remove all small magnets from the refrigerator; small items can easily be lodged in a toddler’s throat
- Move all glassed items in the refrigerator to the higher shelves
- Use the back burners on the stove and turn all pot handles towards the back of the stove
- Lock all cabinets and drawers containing glass, knives, scissors, and other small objects
- Keep electrical cords that are connected to cooking appliances out of reach
- Keep containers that have hot drinks inside away from the edge of tables
- Do not place hot fluids on tablecloths in case the child pulls on the tablecloth
- Never hold or pass hot liquids over your child
- Dispose of any plastic grocery bags and dry cleaning bags immediately, these can cause suffocation
- Lock the kitchen door, or use a safety gate to prevent children going into the kitchen especially when no one is around

Ensuring toddler safety in the BEDROOM :

- Use a safe crib with a snug fitting mattress that cannot get pulled away from the corners. You should not be able to fit more than two fingers between the edge of the mattress and the crib
- Make sure the crib has no areas with gaps more than 2 inches so the child’s head cannot get stuck
- If possible, don’t place the crib near or under a window. If the crib is placed near the window, ensure that all windows are securely latched or use a window guard. A toddler can climb out of the crib, and through the window
- Remove all drapery and blind cords from around the crib. These can lead to strangulation deaths
- Never lock a toddler into a room
- Make sure closets can be opened from the inside, so that your toddler doesn’t get locked in

Ensuring your toddler safety in the BATHROOM :

- Always check bath water temperature before putting a child in the tub
- Never leave your toddler in the bathtub alone, even for a short time. Toddlers can drown in as little as two inches of water
- Don’t keep large buckets or containers of liquid around the house, children can fall head first in to the container and not be able to get out
- Place a lock on all the toilets
- Lock up cabinets containing perfumes, make-up, and other similar bathroom items

Your child will love the new independence of going to bed in their new toddler safari bed and waking up at will. And, since the entrance sits about a foot off the floor, you wont have any worries about injurious falls. Little soldiers and adventurers need a good rest after a long day of adventure. They love sleeping in their special bed, dreaming of tomorrows adventures, and they are ready for a dawn safari the moment they wake up.

Mothers’ experience of bottle feeding

A systematic review of the literature into mothers’ experience of bottle feeding, published today in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, highlights a number of issues relating to care of mothers who do not breastfeed, including: inadequate information received on how to prepare bottle feeds correctly, feelings of guilt and failure experienced by mothers who do not breastfeed and perceived pressure to breastfeed.

UNICEF UK strongly endorses the authors’ conclusion that parents who bottle feed require adequate education in order to minimise the risks. However, the implication within the article that support for breastfeeding through implementation of the WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative is somehow causing inadequate care for bottle feeding mothers is to be questioned. The Baby Friendly Initiative standards recommend that all mothers have a one-to-one discussion on infant feeding with a health professional as a routine part of their antenatal care, with the aim being to ensure that mothers are in a position to make a fully informed choice regarding feeding method.

The only restriction is that group demonstrations on how to prepare bottle feeds are prohibited. The reason being that such demonstrations in antenatal classes undermine breastfeeding, do nothing to aid informed decision making and are an ineffective and inadequate way of teaching. There is no other restriction on any information as long as it is free from advertising and accurate. In the postnatal period it is strongly recommended that bottle feeding mothers are shown how to prepare a feed correctly before being discharged from hospital. In the community, staff are encouraged to have a full discussion with bottle feeding mothers to ensure full understanding of how to bottle feed correctly and UNICEF UK provide an audit tool to help with this process. Staff are also encouraged to ensure that all mothers, regardless of feeding method, have a period of skin-to-skin contact with their babies after delivery to help facilitate bonding and that all mothers room-in with their babies so that they gain confidence in feeding and caring for them. Our long experience of working with the UK health services indicates that, far from reducing care for bottle feeding mothers, improvement in practice for breastfeeding also improves care for bottle feeding mothers. Conversely, poor practice for breastfeeding almost invariably means poor practice for bottle feeding too.

The implication that discussing breastfeeding causes guilt, pressure and feelings of failure is over-simplistic. Evidence has repeatedly shown that not breastfeeding has important implications for infant and maternal health and to deny this information for fear of causing guilt is to deny parents the right to make informed decisions. It is the way the information is imparted which is key and for health professionals to do this appropriately they require adequate training, which is why staff education is such an important element of the Baby Friendly standards.

Finally, it is extremely sad that so many women reported feeling shame and failure for not succeeding at breastfeeding and relief when they gave up and started bottle feeding. Almost all women are physiologically capable of breastfeeding and with the right information and support it should not be difficult or painful. The reason that so many women find it so hard is because they do not receive sufficient support and education, which is why the Baby Friendly Initiative was established.

Childproof your home for toddler safety and some helpful tips on safety outdoors. Keeping our toddler safe is a big part of our job as parents. But it can be tricky to balance a young child's desire to explore everywhere and everything with a parent's need to keep the child safe. As parents, we know that toddlers often forget the rules about safety. And scolding them can make the forbidden item or place seem even more attractive. We want to enjoy our children, but if we spend most of our time watching out for their safety, then no one is having fun. Although childproofing is not a substitute for parental supervision, it substantially reduces the likelihood of injury.

Here you will find some useful tips on toddler safety both indoor and outdoor :

Toddler safety at HOME

Children can injure themselves in the blink of an eye. You could turn your head away for a moment and the child could pull down a boiling pot of food, or swallow something he could choke on. It's hard for parents to anticipate all the potential dangers or safety problems around children. The trick to keeping a safe environment for your children is to stay one step ahead of them at all times. By spotting dangers before an injury happens, you can protect your children from harm and protect yourself from stress and heartache. The first step in providing a safe environment for your child is to prepare your home properly:

Ensuring toddler safety in the KITCHEN :

- Keep matches and lighters out of reach
- Place safety latches on all doors and cabinets, especially where cleaning products and medicines are located
- Remove all small magnets from the refrigerator; small items can easily be lodged in a toddler’s throat
- Move all glassed items in the refrigerator to the higher shelves
- Use the back burners on the stove and turn all pot handles towards the back of the stove
- Lock all cabinets and drawers containing glass, knives, scissors, and other small objects
- Keep electrical cords that are connected to cooking appliances out of reach
- Keep containers that have hot drinks inside away from the edge of tables
- Do not place hot fluids on tablecloths in case the child pulls on the tablecloth
- Never hold or pass hot liquids over your child
- Dispose of any plastic grocery bags and dry cleaning bags immediately, these can cause suffocation
- Lock the kitchen door, or use a safety gate to prevent children going into the kitchen especially when no one is around

Ensuring toddler safety in the BEDROOM :

- Use a safe crib with a snug fitting mattress that cannot get pulled away from the corners. You should not be able to fit more than two fingers between the edge of the mattress and the crib
- Make sure the crib has no areas with gaps more than 2 inches so the child's head cannot get stuck
- If possible, don’t place the crib near or under a window. If the crib is placed near the window, ensure that all windows are securely latched or use a window guard. A toddler can climb out of the crib, and through the window
- Remove all drapery and blind cords from around the crib. These can lead to strangulation deaths
- Never lock a toddler into a room
- Make sure closets can be opened from the inside, so that your toddler doesn't get locked in.

Ensuring your toddler safety in the BATHROOM :

- Always check bath water temperature before putting a child in the tub
- Never leave your toddler in the bathtub alone, even for a short time. Toddlers can drown in as little as two inches of water
- Don't keep large buckets or containers of liquid around the house, children can fall head first in to the container and not be able to get out
- Place a lock on all the toilets
- Lock up cabinets containing perfumes, make-up, and other similar bathroom items

Toddler safety in OTHER AREAS :

- Use furniture with rounded corners. Else, cover sharp corners with home made or store bought corner guards
- Use a straight-slatted, screw-mounted gate at the top and the bottom of a stairway. Never use pressure gates at the top of the stairs. CLICK HERE for guidelines and features to look out for when choosing child safety gates.
- Install vent locks or a window guard on upper story windows to keep them from opening more than three and a half inches
- Do not use table clothes when toddlers are around
- Everything should be kept in its original container to avoid mix-ups between food items and poisons
- Make sure all purses are placed out of reach, especially ones with any pills inside
- If your TV stand isn't sturdy, buy one with a wide base and keep the TV away from the edge. Secure the stand to the wall
- Never run fans on the floor with an infant or toddler around, their fingers are small and can enter the grill area of the fan
- Keep floors clean and vacuumed. Toddlers have an amazing sense for small objects that end up in their mouth and could cause choking.

Other Points to note on toddler safety :

- Keep all sharp objects and tools out of reach
- Never let your children run with something in their mouth
- Never let your children run with something sharp in their hands
- Never let your children walk with glass objects in their hands
- Keep an eye out for sharp objects on walls, toys, cribs, playpens, or strollers
- Use plastic instead of glass, whenever possible
- Always pick up toys, so that no one slips and falls on them

1. Make sure that lamps are out of reach and that cords are hidden away.
2. Install covers on all outlets.
3. Install latches or locks on all reachable cabinets and drawers. Kids can open drawers and stand on them causing furniture to topple over.
4. Make sure that everything that is hung on the wall is sturdy and will not fall. Add reinforcements whenever necessary. We attached heavy duty Velcro {in addition to a picture hanger} to the backs of pictures to ensure that they stayed on the wall. Make sure that shelves are anchored to the wall studs.
5. Use a bed rail or toddler bed to prevent children from falling off the bed.
6. Remove any breakable or heavy items from places that toddlers can reach.
7. Make sure that toy chests or boxes are either open or have a spring loaded top that prevents pinched fingers.
8. Don't store any medicine in the room at all.
9. Make sure that all furniture is stable and durable. Children will inevitably climb on them so you want to make sure that the furniture isn't going to topple over. Kid-sized furniture is great too!
10. Make sure to childproof the closet as well! Lucas has started opening doors so we had to make sure that IF he got inside, it would be ok.
11. Don't use nightlights that plug into an outlet within reach of a toddler! The one we used before did so we had to remove it.
12. Remove the lock from your child's bedroom door and install a non-locking doorknob.
13. If you live in a two story home, make sure that your stairs have stair gates installed.
14. Make sure that blind pulls are wound up out of your child's reach. These pose a strangulation risk!
15. Make sure that windows are secure and locked.