Here’s 16 ways to improve home safety for kids. Whether your child is a baby, toddler or of school age, there’s a multitude of improvements you can make around your home to make it just that little bit safer for them.
There’s a handy table of contents below, with different tips for different ages, click the age you want and you’ll be taken to that specific part of the article. Some links are affiliate links on this page, I am an Amazon Associate and earn from qualifiying purchases.
Table of Contents
Home Safety For Babies
The good news is that babies don’t move much until they learn to roll, crawl and then walk.
However, there are still some ways to improve safety and most importantly for you as a new parent, ways to give you peace of mind that your little one is safe and sound.
1. Baby Monitors
A baby monitor is basically a smaller scale CCTV system that places a camera and microphone near to a cot or sleeping area, with a wireless screen and speaker system in another room.
This allows a parent to visually see their baby and hear them when they are in different rooms.
They are ideal for night time when a baby is in their cot asleep, and you are in another room.
This sort of remote monitoring gives a huge amount of peace of mind, and is especially helpful
2. Baby Breathing Monitor
A breathing monitor is a sensor pad placed under the matress of a cot or cot bed, and monitors the movement of your baby.
An alert sounds if no movement is detected within a specified timescale.
Such a device is designed to protect against cot death (SIDS) and gives an amazing amount of peace of mind for sleeping parents.
  |
|
3. Baby Pens
For when they are a little older and starting to roll and crawl, a baby pen is essentially a room within a room for your baby; place it in any room and you can be assured that they are confined to a safe space within that room.
Baby pens come in all different shapes, sizes and styles, and most come with features that allow your baby to learn and play.
4. Nappy Sacks
They are just so handy aren’t they?
But did you know, nappy sacks that are left within reach of babies represent a huge choking and suffocation hazard.
Store all packs of nappy sacks away from reach of your child to prevent the risk of suffocation.
5. Baby Baths
If possible, use specially designed baby baths to bathe your baby in their first few months.
Of course, a babies spine and head cannot support themselves in their first few months, so a baby bath will support their whole body in an upright position, whilst still allowing a small amount of water to be added for them to enjoy and get used to.
Home Safety For Toddlers
It’s an amazing moment when you first see your child roll, crawl, and then walk.
But with increased mobility, brings increased risk.
Here’s some simple tips to improve home safety for kids and toddlers, which will give you some peace of mind when it comes to your adventurous explorers.
4. Baby Gates
Installing baby gates is the easiest and most simple way of segregating your home for an adventurous toddler.
Baby gates are usually installed near stairs or places of increase danger (like kitchens), and do not allow them free movement, reducing the risk of them hurting themselves.
Baby gates come in all different shapes, sizes, heights, widths and come with different installation techniques (screwed into a wall or no screw baby gates).
See our baby gate buyers guide here.
5. Fire Guards
If you have a gas or open burning fire in a room, it’s essential to guard it with a fire guard.
Small children are naturally inquisitive about fire, and why wouldn’t they – different colours of flame and different flame sizes dancing about in their front room is always going to be a draw.
Cordon off your fireplace with a fire guard that protects against children going near open sources of fire for maximum safety.
6. Blind safety
Blinds come with string and plastic cords that present a huge danger of stragulation for toddlers.
Ensure all blind cords are safely bracketed off to prevent them from getting tangled up in them.
ROSPA say that two children every year die from becoming entangled in blinds.
7. Window Gates
Windows that open out wide are present a huge danger for toddler.
Consider using window gates or window restrictors for windows that are situated at a low level (or level where a child could easily climb up to), and windows that open wide enough that a child could easily fall out of.
  |
|
7. Draw locks/cupboard locks
Kitchen cupboards can be a dangerous place for small children – but of course, it’s what stored in them that is the danger.
Cupboards and drawers with things like sharp knives, pills, cleaning products etc can all pose a danger to a child who accesses on of these locations.
Consider using child safety locks that can be easily and quickly fitted for locations where you keep dangerous products and utensils, and you’ll improve home safety for kids who like to explore in cupboards and drawers.
8. Electrical plug covers
Modern plug socket design in the UK is extremely clever and extremely safe, due to the safety features built in.
There is still a small chance of electrocution though, so it’s best just to blank off any plug sockets that are within reach of an inquisitive toddler.
These blank socket covers are cheap, effective and simple to use, and give maximum peace of mind.
9. Corner Protectors
I will almost gurantee that within the first two years of parenthood, you’ll be at an NHS Walk In Centre or hospital due to a bumped head.
Toddlers fall over. That’s a fact and is part of the learning process.
So given that we know they are going to fall over, the only thing you can do is to reduce the risk of serious injury.
Sharp, or extremely hard surfaces and corners are going to cause serious injury to your child, but you can negate this by buying child friendly corner protectors for your furniture, fixtures and fittings.
PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS | |
10. Wall Support For Tall Furniture
If you have tall, lightweight pieces of furniture, like display cabinets, chests of draws or similar, then you’ll need to apply some common sense.
If your child can grab hold of the furniture, and either pull, climb or swing on it, what is the liklihood that it could topple over and land on them?
Do a quick wobble and stability test on your furniture by pulling, pushing and wobbling it from child height.
If there is any chance at all that this piece of furniture could fall, then you need some furniture anchors, which will anchor your furniture to the wall and stop it falling on top of your child.
11. Pond Safety
If you, a grandparent or relative has a pond in a garden, make sure it’s child proof.
A small child can drown in just 1cm of water if they haven’t learnt the life saving head turn reflex, and there’s countless cases of this tradegy happening every summer in British gardens.
The safest thing to do with a pond is to block off access to it altogether – fence it off with a combination of safety fencing and saefty netting, to ensure your child stays safe whilst you can still enjoy all the benefits a pond brings to a garden.
A big bonus of this is that it also keeps animals like foxes and cats from trying to grab your beloved koi carp.
12. Electrical wires
If you have trailing electrical wiring around your house, the first thing you need to do is tidy it up and make it less accessible to your young one.
A teething child is a child who will literally put anything they can find in their mouth and chomp down on.
Whilst not every wire can be hidden behind furniture or moved, it is a good idea to try and limit the amount of exposed electrical wiring in your home, and re-route it where possible, and have it at a minimum.
13. Pill boxes
Don’t store things like pills or medicines in cupboards or drawers that are low down or easily accessible by a child.
Although most pills come in blister packs or bottles with child safety caps on, it’s still worthwhile relocating anything like this so it’s out of reach.
Alternative, use cupboard or drawer locks, or even secure pill boxes that will prevent your little one from accessing the things that you don’t want them to access.
14. Bathroom locks
Toilet training is a big deal when your toddler is between the ages of 18 months – 4 years old.
Typically, after the initial training is complete, they will try and establish some independance and do it all by themselves.
Children learn by copying – so make sure when they go to the bathroom all by themselves, they don’t try and slide the privacy lock across and inadvertantly lock themselves in.
If you have a simple slide lock, you can simply unscrew the thumb handle, rendering the lock useless to little hands.
If you can’t do this, remove the lock altogether or make sure you are always there when they are in the bathroom.
Because be sure that at some point, they will attempt to slide that lock across and will struggle to reopen it, causing all sorts of panic and stress for you and them.
15. Bath Temperature Monitor
In times gone by, an elbow would be dipped in the water to judge whether or not the temperature of bath water was too hot or not.
Thankfully, these days, we don’t need to go dipping elbows, and home safety for kids has improved as technology has improved.
Floating temperature monitors are cheap, and fun too, and will give you an alarm when the water is either too hot – or too cold.
There’s an example of a bath temperature monitor below, but you can also check our top 5 recommended bath thermometers for babies and children.
  |
|
Home Safety For kids – Big kids
They think they are an adult from early teen years or maybe even younger in this day of age, so naturally, they want to copy everything an adult does…
16. Lock The Alcohol Cupboard
Yep. Just remember not to lose the key.
On a serious note, the majority of kids who get drunk and then end up in A&E having their stomachs pumped get their alcohol from…yes, you guessed it, their parents’ cupboard.
Don’t be that parent!
Questions & Comments
As always, I encourage participation and discussion – let me know your thoughts on this article, your experiences, and if you’ve got any other ways to improve home safety for kids, whatever their age, do share them below.
Stay Safe. Stay Secure.
