Childproofing your home

Whether you have children of your own, or may be expecting children in your home as friends and family visit during upcoming holidays, knowing how to childproof your home can prevent a great deal of distress. While the list of possible measures one may take to achieve this may be endless, we think starting with these five areas are the best ways to start.

Stairs – if the child in question is too young to be using stairs unsupervised, you'll want to make sure that there is no chance of them finding themselves presented with the opportunity to explore stairs. The most effective way to do this is to use a gate. Gates are also handy to have because if there is a particular room that you want to keep a baby out of, the gate can be applied to the entryway of that room as well.

Corners – corners and edges of furniture pieces, and of the actual structure of your home itself, can often be cause of injury for babies who move with little control over their tendency to bump into things. Since much of this bumping can involve their heads, you want to minimize the chances that such a bump will involve a sharp corner or edge—that could be disastrous. Covering corners and edges with bumpers will make these surfaces less injurious.

Storage spaces – the wee folk love to explore spaces that open and close. The danger here is that they may close a door or drawer on themselves, and may even get themselves stuck inside one of these spaces. For this reason, you'll want to use safety locks and latches to prevent them from being able to open and close items like closets, cupboards, and drawers.

Faucets – while it is unlikely that a very young child would be able to reach a sink or shower head on their own, children have ways of surprising us with what they can and can't do. This is why it's important to childproof your faucets. In order to make sure that wandering hands don't find a way to scald themselves with hot water from the tap, install anti-scalding devices on your sinks and showers.

Furniture and appliances – crawlers are explorers, and a big part of the exploration process involves pushing (a very sophisticated science, as you may know). Since you know that babies will be hitting and pushing objects that are within their reach, you don't want to risk that they will knock something over and have it land on them...particularly heavy objects. To prevent this, anchor and secure heavy and unstable pieces of furniture and appliances so that this is not a possibility.