How to Make Sure Your Home is Child Friendly and Safe at all Times

 

When you have a child, your entire world changes and shifts radically. Suddenly you are responsible for the well being of another human being and your life isn’t just about you or your partner anymore. When a child enters the equation, everything in your life needs to be readjusted, including your home and the environment you live in.

 

Read on for safety tips and ideas on how to create a safe and friendly environment for your children and family.

 

The first thing you should keep in mind is that a child’s safety does not just end at making sure that they don’t fall down the stairs or bump their heads against sharp corners. A good parent needs to be constantly vigilant.

 

In a world that is becoming increasingly technology based, parents have to work overtime to make sure that as their children grow up, they are kept safe from stranger danger, not just on the streets but in their own homes as well, via the Internet or social media.

 

Kids at two years old are busy playing on iPads and iPhones and by the time they start school they have become savvy Internet surfers. So it can be quite a difficult task to keep tabs on them to make sure that there are no unwanted intrusions in their lives.

 

It is well worth browsing through quib.ly, and other similar sites. Quib.ly contains a lot of useful information, advice and inspiration for parents. Since you can’t watch your kids like hawks 24/7, or quell their curiosity, make sure to change the settings on your computer so that unwanted sites are blocked and your kids can only access child safe websites.

 

A few other things you can do include limiting access to anything Internet related to a certain amount of time every few days, as well as imposing a restriction on what sites they can or cannot visit.

 

You should keep in mind that no gadget, password or firewall is full proof and the best form of protection that any parent can offer to their child is being a present parent who is alert to their surroundings.

 

Here are a few tips on how to make sure that your home environment is both safe and friendly for your child or children.

 

• Baby proof every inch of your house, this means:
  • Get covers for your electrical outlets (ideally the kind that has a sliding safety hatch);
  • If possible, bolt down furniture and move heavy things to the bottom so that furniture or heavy items don’t fall on your child;
  • Cover sharp edges with soft bumpers so bumping into furniture (which will happen!) won’t be excruciatingly painful;
  • Install safety gates which can be securely screwed into the wall (so that it’s really secure) wherever necessary, especially on stairways and any rooms that you want to restrict access to for instance the kitchen or the bathroom;
  • Use door holders on door hinges to prevent fingers from getting caught and pinched in doorways.
• Keep all matches and anything that can start a fire out of reach and ideally in a locked drawer. The same rule applies for sharp things like knives, blades and scissors.
• If you are lucky enough to have a pool in your backyard, make sure that there is a fence around the pool itself and make sure that there is a lock on the gate that can only be unlocked by an adult. Death by accidental drowning is a very common occurrence and most places have written laws specifying the need for a fence along with other regulations. For instance, California even has its own Swimming Pool Safety Act.
• Tie back or tuck away the cords of your window blinds or curtains. A frequent cause of death or severe injury in children is strangulation;
• If you own any handguns or any kind of firearm, keep them locked away and hidden from sight;
• Lock away all poisonous products like cleaning supplies, gardening pesticides, insecticides etc.;