How do you make your home childproof?

A child-proof home is essential – at the latest when the little ones start crawling, their instinct for discovery grows, and then nothing is truly safe anymore. Everything must be explored, touched, turned, and twisted. If precautions regarding child safety are not taken in time, serious accidents and nasty boo-boos can become the order of the day.

The fact is that household accidents involving children are sometimes the most common cause of death. However, to ensure this does not happen and to avoid little tears in advance, some practical tips are given below on how to make your apartment or house child-proof quickly and inexpensively.

How do you make your home childproof?

Safety items

Safety items such as socket covers, stair and stove safety gates, smoke detectors, potting soil covers, drawer locks, toilet locks or edge protectors can be purchased inexpensively at any good baby specialty store. If you keep your eyes open, you can also find equally affordable items at discount stores during special offers. Nevertheless, when buying safety items, check whether they are marked with the CE mark and TÜV seal. If this is the case, nothing stands in the way of the purchase. However, if these proofs are missing, these goods are likely defective and do not have high quality, which is therefore not conducive to the child's safety.

Do not leave baby alone on the changing table

Never, under any circumstances, leave your child alone on the changing table – not even if the doorbell rings or the phone rings briefly. These people can wait or be called back. Either take your child with you or finish changing them in peace. Babies learn to turn from their back to their stomach much too quickly – this should never be underestimated.

Extra tip: If the children move too actively on the changing table, simply change them on the floor so they cannot fall off.

No tablecloths

Avoid using them for at least the first yearTablecloths. Corners and small tips of tablecloths or table runners are extremely tempting for little baby hands, and before you know it, flowers, coffee sets, and cutlery land on the floor. This wouldn't be too bad, but in most cases, coffee cups are filled with hot drinks or warm food is on the plates. The risk of scalding is simply too high – with a hot cup of coffee or tea, your child can burn up to a third of their body surface! Therefore, ensure that the baby or toddler has no chance to reach these objects.

Put away plastic bags

Ensure that plastic bags and other packaging materials are inaccessible to your child. At first, the child may find it exciting and adventurous to play with crinkly and squishy packaging, but caution is advised here too. An unguarded moment and your darling has pulled the bag over their head – there is a risk of suffocation here!

Keep poisonous cleaning agents out of reach of children

Cleaning products, Batteries and other poisonous utensils should be banished to cupboards that your child cannot access. The best option is a cupboard that can be locked or is at an unreachable height for your child. If poisonous substances get into the child's respiratory or digestive tracts, only a doctor can help.
Are you a smoker? Make sure that Cigarettes, lighters and ashtrays are not accessible to small children's hands. If children eat even the smallest amounts of a cigarette, it can be fatal for your darling.

Make the garden child-proof

Garden owners will also have to look around the garden. Deep holes, garden ponds and poisonous plants should be removed as soon as possible. Ensure that your child cannot hurt themselves or snack on poisonous plants, such as henbane, monkshood, angel's trumpet, garden bean, jimsonweed, wisteria, castor bean, Christmas rose, ivy, crown imperial, lupine, cherry laurel, oleander (highly poisonous!), holly, broom, boxwood, staghorn sumac, forsythia, privet, rhododendron, snowball, or juniper.

Even for plant lovers who keep their potted plants in the apartment on windowsills or similar, they should think about the location. The list of poisonous plants is almost endless. It is best to inform yourself at the local garden center about what can be safely planted in your own garden.

Block off pond or pool

If there is a pond or a pool in the garden, great caution is required. Water magically attracts children and should be inaccessible to them. Surround your pond with a fence or block off your pool if possible. If the pool is only accessible via a ladder, always take the ladder out of the pool so that your child cannot climb onto the ladder alone. Never leave your child alone in a paddling pool – they only need to fall forward and can drown even with little water in the pool.

Secure doors

Once children learn how door handles work, this can also become tricky. Ensure that especially the apartment or front door is always locked so that your child cannot go on an unintended adventure. Also, always lock the garden door well so that your child cannot simply leave the property. The door to the basement in a house should also be well locked so that your child cannot simply run down into the basement.

Anyone who has a garage should retrofit it with a light barrier. This causes the closing process to stop as soon as the light beam is interrupted. This way, nothing can happen if your little adventurer runs into the garage quickly before the door closes. There are also garage doors with finger pinch protection, which can often be retrofitted.

Mount furniture stably

Check early on whether Shelves, dressers or other small furniture stand stably and cannot simply tip over under load. Toddlers practice standing correctly before their first steps. For this, they pull themselves up on everything that is in their crawling path. Also, drawers, which can be pulled out effortlessly, are a source of danger – once little fingers are pinched or the drawer is pulled out, little tears can hardly be avoided.

This list could be continued indefinitely – but the most important precautions are included in the core. Young parents or families with several children will identify more and more sources of danger over time and make them as child-proof as possible. The children also show you quite quickly which things they are burning to explore and which they are not; this varies from child to child. Did we forget an important point anyway? Then I look forward to a comment or an email.

Photo by Andreas, meinhaushalt.at

Also read: Tips for perfectly organizing the children's room