Home safety for your kids is essential, and especially with toddlers. First time parents cannot wait for their newborns to start walking, but those who already have experience with raising a child, have a completely different opinion. As soon as the toddlers start to walk, keeping them safe from self-inflicted injuries becomes a priority.

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Toddlers just love to play and experiment with everything they get hold of and this leads to many uncalled-for accidents, such as falling down the stairs, pulling heavy objects upon themselves, receiving burns and much more. Here are some ways in which you can make your home a safe place for your toddler to move around.

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Placing a Safety Catch

There are several drawers and cabinets in every house, and toddlers love to mess them up by pulling them out or experimenting with the contents inside. This can be dangerous since many a times a child can pull the entire drawer or cabinet on to himself or herself and inflict injury, in such cases.
Therefore, placing a safety catch on drawers and cabinets will prevent your toddler from opening the drawer at all. A safety catch placed on the refrigerator door. Safety catch is a simple yet effective method that will help prevent a great number of unexpected hazards.

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Securing Power Points and Electrical Cords

A toddler can easily get hold of a dangling electrical cord and can pull appliances on to him or herself, such as a kettle, a blender, or even a coffee maker etc. This can result in some serious burns or scald injury. Therefore, it is best to secure all such cords with a cord holder or customize them to make the cords shorter.
It is essential to cover all the power sockets with a plastic covering or a tape, if nothing else is available. Electrical injuries are very dangerous and can end up being fatal.

Tip over hazards

For many homeowners tipping over hazards such as heavy furniture can be a disaster for toddlers who like to climb furniture. Many child proofing methods of securing the back of the furniture to the wall are effective.

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Locking Up Toxic Substances and Drugs

It is equally important to lock away all toxic substances, such as dish-soaps, detergents, flammable liquids and all other chemicals, from the reach of a child. Apply similar measures for all medicines, vitamins or other herbal mixtures. Ingestion of any of these results in toxicity and poses serious danger to the child’s life.
In addition to these, guard all windows and stairs of the house, the floor should have rubber matting under the carpet and make sure the stove and oven are secure. Ensure all these safety measures for your toddler, but do not forget to keep an eye on them at all times.

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The kitchen is the heart of the home. It is the one room in the house where the family can gather to have fun cooking and baking together, but it’s important to bear in mind that it can be a hazardous place too.

If you have little ones, you need to take into account their safety in the kitchen. There are various appliances which can be harmful such as the kettle, oven, and toaster. Children can be naïve to the kind of dangers that can occur within the kitchen, so it’s important to teach them about kitchen safety.

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Here are some tips to help you design a child-friendly kitchen.

Layout

Kitchens can be functional as well as aesthetically pleasing, but they should be family-friendly too. The layout is key to this, especially as many modern homes do not include doors within each room. Years ago parents could shut the door to keep the children away but in many newer homes, the kitchen forms part of a larger living space.

Plan the traffic flow in the room to minimise the chance of crossing paths. An island can reduce the risk of collisions and act as a barrier, to create a child-friendly zone. They can sit at one side whilst you cook and prepare the food at the other side. The last thing any parent wants is for their little ones to be bumping into them when they are holding a pan of boiling water!

If you do plan on installing an island, make sure it isn’t too high so the children don’t have to climb up onto high stools. And used curved corner posts or soft corner pads to minimise the angles, this will help to reduce the risk of accidents.

Material

The materials you choose for your kitchen are important. They should be hard-wearing and long-lasting because when children are around accidents can happen. Corian, Omega and Encore worktop surfaces are ideal because they are stain-resistant and provide a softer landing surface for plates and glasses.

Stone and wood can withstand dents and matte surfaces help to conceal dirt and grease. It is all about combining practicality with style; high gloss surfaces may look sleek and stylish but they won’t when sticky hands are imprinted on them. Painted surfaces are another good choice as they are easier to retouch if they become damaged.

Appliances

You should look for appliances that minimise the risk of accidents, such as induction hobs. These are a safer alternative to gas hobs because they heat the pan instead of the hob; removing the risk of little ones coming into contact with an open flame. Many induction hobs also come with child locks for added safety.

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Your child will look to you and imitate your habits so be a positive role model and respectfully use the kitchen environment. Let your children learn by watching you follow safe procedures in and around the kitchen.

This article was provided by Britannia Living, the specialists in high-end, premium cooking appliances for the home.

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Working from home can be a very enjoyable experience. Home offices are financially beneficial, they don’t require traveling and they save you from working a nine to five. However, when you introduce a small child or baby into the environment, there are suddenly a lot of hazards that you need to be concerned about. Babies are known for having curious senses. They want to touch, taste and see everything. This type of behavior could potentially be dangerous around your office equipment. Just like you would baby proof other rooms in your home, it’s important that you baby proof the home office.

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1) Store Equipment out of Reach

By storing your equipment out of reach, your child won’t be able to access it. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to be neglectful and keep things at floor level. Anything heavy or potentially dangerous should be kept well away from curious babies.

2) Use Tie Wraps for Cords

Babies have a natural fascination and curiosity with cords. They will chew them, pull them and even carry them away if you’re not careful. By using tie wraps to carefully position computer and other equipment cords out of reach, they will no longer pose a problem.

3) Reduce Office Clutter

Let’s face it, very few of us are so organized that we aren’t subjective to office clutter. You can store items like paper clips, staples, scissors and other small items in a drawer where they are safe from prying hands. It may even be a good idea to lock the drawer. These items are definite choking hazards for a small child and are best kept safe and secure.

4) Secure Trash Can

Babies seem to naturally gravitate toward trash. It’s one of the easiest things for a child to get their hands on. By purchasing a large trash can, it should be too tall for a small child to reach and tip over. Placing a weight in the bottom is another precautionary measure to ensure it won’t easily tip over. Make sure the weight is heavy enough to where there is no possibility of this, as the weight itself could be a potential risk if you aren’t careful.

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5) Electric Outlets

Uncovered electric outlets are a definite safety hazard for a child. Make sure that you cover unused outlets to prevent your child from sticking an object or finger inside. Outlets can be one of the more serious dangers for babies in home offices.

6) Buttons to Equipment

Power buttons or other operational buttons are huge temptations for a baby. They’re often illuminated green or red, and that’s something no baby can resist. If you don’t want your computer turning off just before you save an important document, make sure these buttons are unreachable. This includes your computer, printer, cable modem and other office related equipment.

Charles Henry often works in his home office when working for RentersInsurance.net a company that provides cheap rental insurance for people.

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When your little tykes get big enough to crawl, climb, and walk around, you’re going to have to start worrying about a whole new level of dangerous things they can get into, especially in the kitchen.  Just the thought of a toddler rooting through the trash, getting stuck in the fridge, or opening a drawer full of knives is enough to send any parent into panic mode.  Luckily, you’re not the first parent to face these trials and tribulations in the course of child-rearing, so there are plenty of solutions out there for the concerned adult that would like to make the kitchen a safe place for the little ones.  Here are just a few tips to help you do so.

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Gates

Baby gates won’t keep your kids out forever, but they’ll work well enough during the stage where anything and everything must be sampled to see if it’s food, or when every door, drawer, and unseen surface that is just within reach (the stovetop, for example) represents an adventure waiting to be discovered.  So until your children are old enough to understand (and heed) you when you warn them that something is dangerous, your best bet to preserve their ongoing health and safety is to keep them far away from the many trouble zones represented in the kitchen.

Height

Your main advantage over your kids, at least when they’re young, is that you have access to overhead spaces that are beyond the grasp of their tiny fingers.  However, you should be aware that some kids are climbers, so although it’s a good idea to put harmful items in the higher cabinets, you may want to secure them against entry, as well.

Latches

While you can certainly keep some hazardous items out of reach in the kitchen, it behooves you to put latches on all doors and drawers (including the fridge), and there are a couple of reasons.  First of all, you can’t possibly store everything out of reach (unless you are okay with the idea of foregoing half of the usable storage space in your kitchen).  This means that potentially hazardous items (cleaning solvents, sharp utensils, and heavy pots and pans, for example) could be on the lower level.  And where would you put the trash?  Since you’ll have to store some items within easy reach of your children, simply secure them with child-proof latches.

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Locks

Kids are like little velociraptors, constantly testing the defenses.  So eventually they’re going to figure out how even sophisticated latching systems release.  You’d hope by this point they’d be smart enough not to drink the dish soap or pull an iron skillet down on their heads, but since you can’t really be sure of that, you may want to switch to locks on the doors, at least for cabinets that contain the most potentially hazardous items.

Alarms

Okay, so this might seem like overkill, but if your kids are persistent, some kind of closed-circuit alarm system could be necessary to ensure that they’re not breaking and entering in your kitchen cabinets.  If you’re really paranoid (say you have older kids that get left home alone on occasion, and you’re worried about the well-stocked liquor cabinet) you can even get an alarm system that alerts your smart phone when it goes off.  It doesn’t take a specialist in loss control management to know that kids are going to try to get into things they’re not supposed to when your back is turned, so you need to protect them from themselves by any and all means available.

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