17 ways to effectively baby proof your House
Tags: Baby, Health, Healthcare, Parenting, Safety

BY THABITHA DAVID · PUBLISHED JULY 10, 2020 · UPDATED SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Baby Proof your house — Have you heard in the news, about a baby drowning in water? Have you had visions of your baby having a bad accident at your very home? Do you wonder how you can make your house free of hazardous accidents?

Well, you have come to the right page!

All mothers want to keep their baby safe from all kinds of hazards and dangers.

It is normal for every mother to over think about the possible accidents their baby could have.

A baby between the age of 6 months to 4 years has a big chance of injuring himself or herself in the safe place called home.

Experts have further pointed out that a child less than the age of 4 years old can be killed by fire, drowning, choking, poisoning, or falls than by physical abuse from an intruder.

It is always nearly impossible for a mother to keep an eye on a moving baby all the time. Accidents at home happen within seconds leading to a rush to the hospital. The best way to avoid such mishaps is to brainstorm ideas from the stage of pregnancy itself on how to baby proof your house.

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What does Baby Proofing your house mean?

The term “baby proof” means to keep your house safe for the baby to crawl and explore around.

It is not healthy to keep the baby bounded and give limited room for exploring.

Thus, parents should try their best to make their house safe to let their child thrive with maximum potential.

Why baby proof your house

According to the U.S Centers for Disease and Prevention, about 2.3 million children are accidentally injured every year and more than 2,500 are killed.

Research has emphasized the need to maintain a safe home environment for a cruising baby. Your baby needs to be in an environment where they can move around freely and explore their surroundings. By doing this they improve their knowledge, and this helps in their physical development.

If you would like to know more about how to boost your baby’s IQ and help in their physical development, do read our article 15 ~ Easy ways to Boost your baby’s IQ and Physical development, respectively.

Read on to find out how you can make your home environment healthy and safe for your baby.

ways to baby proof your house

Vacuum and Vacuum!

The floors of your home should be clean. A baby on the move can pick the tiniest little particle and put it in his/her mouth.

Vacuuming and mopping the floor cannot be emphasized enough.

Keep hazardous products out of reach (medication and skin products)

All homes have a collection of hazardous products like medications, cleaning products and skin products. Swallowing these products can lead to life threatening consequences.

The colorful product bottles are attractive to babies’ eyes. It is a responsible act to put locks on such cabinets or keep these products out of reach.

Just like other chemicals, the everyday medicines we have in our houses, like paracetamol, cough syrups, etc., can also be hazardous if baby consumes by accident. It may either choke your little one as they may not be able to swallow a tablet or it may become an overdose. Both these situations may be extremes harmful for your child. So always keep medicines out of reach.

As we speak about medicines, We should ALWAYS go by what the doctor says and not self medicate our little ones. Because self medication by the parent can cause lot of problem for a baby and at times become fatal. As parents it is important for us to know more about self-medication. We urge you to read our article — SELF MEDICATION for Kids — A MUST KNOW for every parent.

Free your home from small toys

Your baby can swallow a tiny toy within seconds. Especially because it is easy for them to hold tiny toys and therefore making it easier to put it in their mouth. There have been many cases reported at the hospital of such incidents.

Toys are made colorful to attract children. If you have noticed you would see that many toy boxes are labeled instructing us to keep the toy out of reach of children under 3 years of age.

In fact, when our second son was in the crawling around stage, we would comment saying is something is lost. All we needed to do was to let our son crawl and follow him. He would find out the object.

You will be amazed at how babies have the knack to find objects from every nook and corner of the house. And, their first instinct is to put it in their mouth!

Thus, it is important to keep hazardous toys out of your baby’s reach.

Keep the electric sockets sealed

Curiosity of the baby could lead him or her to explore the electric socket holes.

This is very dangerous as it can cause electric shock to the baby. Babies’ little fingers can easily slip into the electrical socket holes.

There are electric socket plug-ins that are easily available in the market. If you cannot find one, you could just put a paper tape on the unused electric sockets temporarily. If your baby is still crawling around and just started walking it is very important to seal the electric sockets.

This might not work at later stages for the baby, as he or she can easily peel the paper tape with those fine little fingers.

Keep a cords-free home

It is common to have many appliances at a home with bunch of unorganized cords lying around.

A crawling baby can be attracted to those wires and start to play. It is very easy for them to hold and pull the wires. This could lead a baby to tangle him or herself up. Even worse get an electrical shock.

Likewise, children who have just started to walk can easily trip over the lying cords and get injured. In this process, the appliance attached to the cord may also fall on your baby.

So, it is wise to keep the floor free of cords to prevent trip hazards. Better yet, keep cords out of reach of children.

Safety-doors

There are many places at home you would not want a baby to explore. For example, a kitchen is no place for a baby to hang out.

It is vital to put a baby safety-door at the entrance of the kitchen.

Also, a baby has no business to explore the bedrooms where there are so many drawers where accidents can take place.

A baby could bruise its fingers by shutting the drawer on them.

The main area that baby needs to be able to move around is the common areas like living room, dining room, baby bedroom.

Rest of the places including staircase it is better to use Safety doors can stop many accidents.

Always keep the washroom doors shut

A baby can have the utmost fun splashing in the bathroom water. It is natural for every baby to enjoy playing in water.

But drowning is a very major hazard right under our nose. A baby can drown in just half a bucket of water.

Simple curiosity of trying to reach water in a bucket and toppling over can lead to drowning.

According to the U.S drowning stats, 42 children under the age of 4 have been reported of drowning in the month of June 2019.

Also, if bathroom is not spick and span and the baby can play with water on the bathroom floor.

This dangerous play could lead to diarrhea as the water is sure to go in the mouth while splashing.

Emphasize the need to keep the washroom doors shut in your family. All the time.