Guest Blogger: How to Design a Safe Kitchen for your Kids

 Guest Blogger #487, Entry #1123, April 24, 2012

Parents find all kinds of ways to childproof their homes when they first bring home a baby, including adding bumpers to sharp corners, covering outlets, securing large furnishings with straps, and boxing up items that are breakable to bring out at a later date. But when it comes to the kitchen, there are so many potential hazards that many parents may simply put up a baby gate and call it a day. Of course, this won’t work so well for homes with open floor plans. And there is always the possibility that your baby, toddler, or young child will eventually get around your barrier and into something dangerous. So it behooves you to find ways to design a safer kitchen for your kids. Here are a few helpful hints to get you started.

Help your kids with a safe kitchen

Image via: Cookie Mondays

Safety doesn’t have to be costly

First of all, let me emphasize that you do not have to renovate your kitchen in order to ensure the safety of your children. There are plenty of changes you can implement that don’t have to be expensive or invasive, and most are simple enough to manage on your own. For example, the place that most parents start is with latches or locks for under-counter storage space. Door and drawer latches are an extremely cost-effective means of ensuring that infants and toddlers won’t get into a drawer full of cutlery or a cabinet containing trash, chemical cleaning solvents, or even heavy pots and pans (all of which could be hazardous to their health). They are cheap, durable and easy to install.

Unfortunately, clever kids will figure out how to unlatch them eventually. In most cases they will be old enough by that point to understand the concept of danger and steer clear. But if their curiosity and cleverness develops a little faster than their comprehension of personal peril you might have to replace the latches with locks. At some point you may also want to lock some of the upper cabinets, particularly if your kids are climbers (and prone to pulling things down on themselves) or if you keep potentially harmful items like liquor or vitamins on the higher shelves.

Safety doesn’t have to be costly

Image via: Tree Hugger

Safety precautions

You should also consider locking the appliances, and there are a number of devices to help you here. If you have a modern stove with knobs that push in and turn to ignite the burner, you can easily install stove locks (small plastic plates that stop the knob from being pushed in and/or turned from the off position). You could also add a stove guard (like a shield) to the front of the stove so that tiny tots can’t reach the hot burners. And you can easily add simple strap-and-buckle type latches to all of your appliances (oven, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, and even warming drawers) to keep them secured against the curious nature of your kids.

Your home insurance may protect you from damages caused during a home invasion robbery or from fire and other natural disasters, but it won’t stop your kids from triggering the dangers that lurk around every corner when they explore their environment. So when it comes to designing a kitchen with the safety needs of your kids in mind, it behooves you to implement devices that will protect them from their own curiosity and ensure that they’re safer within their own home.

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