3 great ways to make your home child friendly.

Photo by Alesia Kazantceva on Unsplash

As your little one/s gets older you will need to adapt the home to make it more child-friendly.  Unless you have been a parent before I don't think you will believe me when I say that little children are walking hazards.  They will find everything that is dangerous in your home and they will play with it.

This blog post is here to show you 3 great ways of keeping your children safe in the home.  If you have any tips that you think we should include add them in the comments section at the end of the post, we would love to hear from you.

According to Bathroom Supastore, over 1 million children per year are admitted to hospital each year with injuries sustained at the home.  Hopefully, by reading this post, you will be able to avoid some of these accidents.

1) Keeping your child safe when bathing.

When bathing your child it's important to keep an eye on them at all times and never be distracted.  Get rid of that mobile phone, turn the cooker off and lower down the TV. Don't let any distractions get in the way of giving your child your full attention.  

When filling your bath make sure to only cover your child's legs in water, this could be between anything from 5cm to 9cm depending on the size and age of your child.  You only need enough water to clean them, you don't need to fill the bath so they can swim in.  

The water you put in your bath is also important and the temperature shouldn't go above 37 degrees Celcius, any higher and you will burn your child's skin.  Judging water temperature is hard and to make sure you don't scald your child I would highly recommend buying a water thermometer. You can get them from baby shops or online sites like Amazon.

You should have the bath ready before putting your child in it, this is to ensure you don't burn them when you need to adjust the temperature of the water by running the warm water tap.

Some parents recommend non-slip mats, personally, I don't like them and find they still slip in the bath which causes a major slip or fall hazard. 

2) Keeping your child safe when sleeping.

Sleeping especially as a newborn is a dangerous activity if the babies sleeping area isn't prepared the way it should be.  Most parents think that their baby needs to be kept wrapped up and really warm, but this is dangerous for your child. Invest in a room thermometer and adjust your baby's clothing to the temperature that is shown.

When sleeping you should always put your baby on its back to minimise the chance of suffocation.  Families with pets should also becareful that the pets (cats) can't get into the babies cot. If you do have a cat make sure to install a cat net on your babies cot.

Co-sleeping is a no-no with most parents, and I would recommend against it, the risk isn't worth it.

3) Keeping your child safe when walking.

When your baby gets to their crawling and walking stages then your home will become even more dangerous for them.  At this stage, it is very important not to leave them alone on chairs or beds as they can easily fall off and injure themselves.

If you have any windows in which your child can open make sure to install a window guard to prevent this from happening.  If you have patio doors you should add stickers to the windows so your child can see that there's glass in the way, this will prevent them from running into the door.

When your baby becomes mobile there is a greater risk of them falling down the stairs, at this stage you should install baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs.  I'd also recommend adding them to the kitchen entrance too as they could wander in when you are cooking something hot.

Finally, there are companies out there that sell plastic that covers any hard corners to protect your child if they fall into them, I'd avoid these and buy some bubble wrap.  Bubble wrap does a better job and is cheaper.

Conclusion.

Protecting your child in the home can be tough, but with a little common sense, a lot of watching over them and by reading the tips above you should be in a much better place to protect your child at home.

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