Main menu

5 Tips for Making Your New Home Kid-Safe

26th Jul 2013

Introducing a new member of the family can bring its own special requirements and challenges. If you’re having your first child, it’s unlikely your home has been designed with a baby in mind. Here are some tips for turning your love nest into a kid-safe haven.

See it from their perspective

Take a seat on the floor and have a look around you. You’ll be at toddler height and able to see any hazards at their level. Are there sharp coffee table corners? A bookshelf that can easily be grabbed and pulled over? A crawl space that would be hard to retrieve a child from? There’s no point looking at kid-safing your house if you’re only looking from an adult perspective – you may miss vital hazards that could cause problems later on.

Bring on the bolts

It is essential that you bolt anything to the wall that could fall on your child. If your little one climbs the bookshelf when you leave the room to grab their bottle, there is a real risk the bookshelf could fall on them if it’s not bolted to the wall. Bring in the professionals to expertly affix bookshelves and other heavy items like cabinets, dressers, chests of drawers, and cupboards to the wall so that you won’t have to worry about accidents happening to your child.

Design your home with your child in mind

If children are on the cards, it’s a good idea to design your home from the beginning as a kid-safe environment. If you’re using an expert, like Coral Homes, you’ll be able to tell them to take steps in the design to ensure your children, either present or future, will not be put at risk.

They can suggest all sorts of ways to make your new home kid-safe. A great example of this could be how expert designers at Garman Builders and firms similar to them could advise you to use non-toxic paints; install childproof locks on cupboards; add baby gates at the bottom or top of stairs; and tie up electrical cables so they are completely out of reach.

Cover electrical outlets

Purchase electrical outlet covers to put over outlets you aren’t currently using. If you’re not sure how to properly install outlet covers, it’s best to hire a professional electrician (see Electricians Belfast – Glow for reference) to do the job. This will ensure that the outlet covers are installed safely and securely and that you and your family are kept safe from any potential harm. You may also want to consider hiring an electrician to inspect all of the wirings in your home, to ensure that you are using electrical outlets safely and efficiently.

In addition to outlet covers, it’s important to consider switchboard upgrades to ensure your children’s safety. Upgrading to a modern switchboard with safety switches, also known as residual current devices (RCDs), can provide added protection against electric shocks and reduce the risk of electrical fires. A professional electrician can advise you on the best options for your home and install any necessary Switchboard Upgrade Sydney or elsewhere.

Constantly review

The measures you put in place when your baby is crawling are different from those that will be necessary when they’re toddling, so you have to constantly review your kid-safe measures to make sure you’re always providing the highest level of care for your little ones. Take your child’s personality into consideration too – if you have a climber, you’ll need to take extra measures to make sure they aren’t constantly at risk of injury. Make sure drawers are always closed so they don’t use them as ladders, and ensure the floor of their room has a cushy carpet so that if they climb out of their cot, they’ll at least have a soft landing.

Having a baby is an exciting time of life, so make sure you get these kid-saving measures out of the way as soon as possible, so you can enjoy welcoming this new tiny person into your world.

Comments are closed.