CHILDPROOF YOUR HOME

Keeping Toddlers Safe At Home

Childproofing your home is maybe the first and most important thing you need to do before your child reach the age of two. Here is an excellent checklist for you to make sure that your toddler is safe at home:

• Install safety latches on all cabinets and drawers containing dangerous objects and materials including delicate glass wares.
• Store all substances that might be harmful if swallowed or dangerous to eyes and skin in cabinets that can be locked and are beyond a toddler’s reach. These substances include medications, bleaches, detergents, ammonia, spot removers, and other cleaning materials, kerosene, gasoline, pesticides, and some cosmetics.
• When you childproof your home and you need to buy toxic products, look at them the way a child would. Is the package attractive? Does it have an inviting look, touch or smell? If so, consider purchasing an alternative product that is less appealing.
• Look around for easily breakable objects on coffee tables, sideboards, and other places. If you don’t want them broken, put them away!
• Buy safety caps to electrical outlets to prevent your toddler from poking objects into them.
• Many household plants are poisonous – the leaves, stems, and blooms of philodendrons, poinsettias, foxglove, and purple nightshade, for example. Do not grow them if you have children.
• Tie knots in plastic dry-cleaner bags before throwing them out. Children have suffocated from playfully putting these bags over their head.
• One important thing to childproof your home is to always check inside the oven and broiler before you turn either one on. If they are within a toddler’s reach, you just never know what might have been placed in there for “safekeeping.” It’s also wise to cook on the backburners whenever possible and to turn pothandles toward the rear of the stove.
• If your windows are double hung, locate your screens in the upper part for ventilation. If this is impossible, upper story screened windows should be closed when your child is up and about.
• Keep attics, basements, and other storage areas locked.

You will never know what your toddler is up to all the time, so childproof your home.

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty