How To Baby-proof Your Home

By Author: Jason Becker
Total Articles: 4762
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Get down on your hands and knees and imagine that you don't know what all those objects around you really are, so you have to taste them. This will get you a bird's eye view of what a baby experiences as she explores the world. Everything within reach of those wonderful, sticky fingers will go into the mouth for identification purposes, and she won't know what's dirty or dangerous until someone tells her.

Grab Another Adult and Get Going

This is the best way to baby-proof your home. Begin by sitting in the center of each room and taking a good, hard look around. Babies will get into literally everything. Make a note of cords, tabletop items, bookshelves, all the furniture, piles of shoes, pots and pans, anything and everything that a baby might find highly amusing but an adult might not. Don't forget the cat box and the garbage cans.

Pick these items up and put them away as much as possible, or store them out of sight of baby. Your collection of art books can come out of storage in a few years; meanwhile, keep them safely tucked away in a closet.

Fasten down bookshelves or get rid of them ...
... in favor of wall shelves. Babies love to climb on anything that looks like stairs, and they will pull the books and the bookshelves down as quickly as possible. Wobbly chairs are a serious danger, as well as chairs baby can crawl into then promptly fall out of. Make sure couches are pushed tight against the wall, and that you clean out underneath and behind furniture on a regular basis. You never know what object will fall just out of an adult's sight and right into a baby's mouth.

Dirty things like cat boxes and garbage cans are messy as well as dangerous. Keep these items safely out of reach of baby and you will have no trouble.

No matter what time of year it is when you are baby-proofing your home, turn on the furnace. Do you have registers which get hot? Block them off. Are the floor vents loose? Replace them. Do you have a fireplace or wood stove? Supervise your baby carefully when these items are in use, and make sure fires are dead out when you are done.

The bathroom is a terrible place for a baby to spend time. There are so many dangers that seem to be so much fun for baby. Make sure your hot water taps have a temperature-control valve on them so you don't scald your little one. Keep the toilet lid down at all times, and lock it with a special lock. Your baby will want to use the toilet as a cauldron for mixing nail polish and cleaner together at some point if you don't lock it tight.

Make sure you lock your front door every night when your baby gets older and is able to climb out of bed on her own. If your child steps out in the dark and the door closes behind her, she will be extremely frightened and the weather could prove deadly to a little one.

Don't Forget the Usual Stuff Too

Obviously, prescription and over-the-counter drugs should be locked up tightly in a high place where the baby can't reach. Use the same logic with alcoholic beverages too.

Every gun in the house must have a trigger-lock and be completely unloaded. No exceptions.

Household cleaners, even the organic kinds, can be very dangerous if ingested. Keep only what you need around the house and keep it locked up.

Gates are not cages; they are vital safety mechanisms for your baby. Even if you have doors to the basement or on non-baby proofed rooms, get gates and put them up. Use them properly and consistently to control your baby's movements between rooms. You will only need these gates for a few years, and then you can sell them at a garage sale or give them away to a deserving new parent.

Don't stop baby-proofing your home after you have put outlet plugs in and locked the cupboard doors. There are thousands of dangerous (and fun) places for your baby to get into, and unexpected items could fall on them or on the floor, to be promptly put in the mouth. Do the easy stuff, then take a good look around. Your home will be much safer, and your life with baby much easier if you baby-proof your home properly.
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