5 Ways to Make Your Home Safer for Toddlers

For growing children, the home should be a safe place where they can explore, play, and learn. Unfortunately, each house comes with its own set of hazards—many of which may not be immediately noticeable to the adults living in the same space.

To make your home a much safer place for children, you need to identify these hazards and eliminate or work around them before they can cause injuries or illnesses for the younger members of your family. At the same time, it pays to be ready. Taking a first aid course in Gold Coast or in your neighborhood can go a long way in preparing your household for emergency situations.

What are the common hazards that children face at home, and how can you address these? Here are 5 tips that will make your home safer for toddlers and young children.

1. Prepare for emergencies. Taking a first aid course is a solid step in making your home safer for children, but it doesn’t stop there. You also need to have the right tools. To ensure that everyone in your household can access help in emergency situations, print out emergency phone numbers and post them where they can be seen. Make sure that you have a well-stocked first aid kit in an accessible location as well, and check and replenish its contents every few months or so.
2. Try to look at your home from a child’s point of view. The world is very different in the eyes of a child—it’s a much bigger place with plenty of nooks and crannies that are ripe for exploration. To understand what a young child is looking at, try to inspect the room while crawling on all fours. This allows you to see things from a child’s point of view and lets you spot hazards that adults often miss.
3. Watch out for causes of electric shocks. Young children are naturally inquisitive and will put their fingers and anything they can grasp into holes in the walls. To avoid electrocution incidents, make sure that all unused electrical outlets are covered with plug protectors. When electrical appliances are not in use, keep them unplugged. There should be no electrical cords running under rugs, and avoid leaving the cords from appliances hanging on the edge of the counter.
4. Take note of small items that can cause choking. Anything that can fit into a child’s mouth can be a choking hazard. To avoid choking in small children, make sure that choking hazards like small toys are out of reach. If you have an older child who plays with smaller toys, encourage them to keep their things tidy, or set aside a safe playing space for them that is out of the reach of the toddler. You can also ask the older child to play with bigger toys when they are playing together.
5. Keep substances that can cause poisoning out of sight. Everything from makeup to medicine can be a cause of poisoning incidents among children. There are plenty of ways to prevent such accidents from taking place in your home. All your cleaning products should be labelled properly and kept behind locked and/or overhead cabinets. Medicines should also be kept in child-proof containers or behind locked doors, and they should never be advertised as candy to children. Another thing that you can do is check your gardens for poisonous plants and get rid of them.

Keeping track of hazards at home can be a challenge, especially since young children can make a lot of mess wherever they go. However, with a bit of persistence and vigilance, these habits can become second nature to you and keeping your home safe for curious kids will become an easier task.