This post was sponsored by Window Covering Safety Council
as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central
and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.
As a parent, your child’s safety and well being is a high priority which is why you want to make your home child-safe. Baby-proofing your home and keeping them safe is generally a no-brainer for responsible parents, but it’s easy for small things to get overlooked. While things like covering electrical sockets or installing cabinet locks so they don’t get to household cleaners seems obvious, there are many safety precautions you should take but might not have thought of yet.
While a little parenting goes a long way to keep kids safe, you can’t rely on your ability to keep your eyes on your kids 24/7. It only takes a few seconds for a smart kid to get themselves into a stupid situation. As a mom of 4, I can tell you that what one kid would never dream of doing, another kid will totally surprise you and do that thing in spades. Each child has such a unique personality!
My second child, a boy, was the best-behaved child you’ve ever met. I didn’t have to “baby proof” anything for him. Told him one time not to open cabinet doors and he never did it. Told him one time not to go outside without an adult and he never did. He was such a good boy! Then baby #3 came along and boy did he blow me away. He habitually climbed EVERYTHING! From the moment that boy learned how to pull himself up and stand, he was climbing anything and everything he could get his hands on.
With his monkey-like tendencies, I quickly learned to spot danger before he did. We installed high-security baby gates and fences everywhere, secures furniture to the walls, created barriers in front of things we didn’t want him to get to, and basically turned our whole living room into a baby-safe giant playpen so we knew he would be totally safe in that one room.
Such a devious daredevil, one of his favorite things to do became scaling the living room windows. They are only about 20 inches off the floor, so it’s quite easy for a nimble 2-year-old to climb up into the window and stand on the window sill. He was always very careful when he climbed and never fell, so I wasn’t too worried. That is, until one day he discovered the cords on the blinds!
It was the one thing I had almost overlooked! Our beautiful, wooden blinds in the living room had cords and while the extra length was always coiled up and hanging on a hook, it was not high enough now that he was literally climbing the windows. I was lucky to catch this before it became a horrendous accident but others might not be so lucky, which is why I want to share 4 ways to make your home child-safe and also share some important information from Window Covering Safety Council!
1. Kids and Cords Don’t Mix!
It might not be convenient or seem affordable, but if you have small children in the house you need to replace older corded blinds and window coverings with today’s safer products like cordless blinds. You absolutely need to have cordless window covering products or those that have inaccessible cords in homes with young children. When shopping for new window treatments, look for the Best for Kids™ certification label in stores and online, which makes it easy to identify the products that you need.
Spring is the perfect time to update and renovate your home! Warmer weather makes you want to open all your doors and windows, breath the fresh, clean air, so what better time to take a look at your window coverings and think about upgrading?
If you have corded blinds or other corded window coverings in rooms where your children are allowed, then it’s incredibly important to upgrade to safer, inaccessible cord window blinds or cordless shades. It’s so easy for something as simple as cords to turn into a fatal nightmare. Don’t risk it another second! Start shopping right now for cordless blinds that are best suited for homes with young children in order to make your home child-safe.
PSA: Only Use Cordless Window Coverings with Young Children from Window Covering Safety Council on Vimeo.
2. Anchor Down Furniture
Obviously, you don’t need to screw down your couch, but bookcases, entertainment centers, televisions, etc should be properly anchored to the wall. Most items like bookcases come with the necessary hardware to attach them to the wall, but if they don’t, contact the manufacturer or head to your local hardware store or Home Depot and ask an associate what products you need to properly secure top-heavy furniture to the wall or floor.
It’s best to purchase wall mounts for TV’s as they can easily tip over and break or cause an injury. Even if you have your TV in an entertainment center, it should still be screwed down or on a wall mount attached to the back of the entertainment center. All it takes is one second of looking away for a disaster to happen whether the child stands up and pulls the TV over on himself or an older child plays ball in the house, hits the TV and it tumbles over on a little one. You can never take too many precautions when it comes to anchoring things like electronics and furniture down around young children. It’s just one more step you need to take to make your home child-safe.
3. Put Nightlights In Every Room
This might seem like another no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how often this is overlooked! The importance of nightlights cannot be overstated. With small children in the house, there are bound to be toys and other items lying around on the floor where they shouldn’t be. Have you ever stepped on a Lego? Need I say more?
Nightlights are important for every room of the house for your safety and the safety of your children. You don’t want your child tripping over a toy in the middle of the night when they inevitably come looking for you, nor do you want to go head over heels over something as you are heading to your child’s bedroom to put them back to sleep.
Be sure to look for orange nightlights or use a Himalayan salt lamp as a nightlight. Orange light doesn’t disrupt the production of melatonin like blue light does. You can also get plush nightlights for kids to take to bed with them that will also help light their way. Even a little thing like a nightlight can help make your home child-safe.
4. Prevent Drowning
With warmer weather here, outdoor time will be increased and thus the exposure to water. Whether it’s a backyard stream, a watering bucket, or something as obvious as an inground pool getting uncovered, the need for extra precautions to prevent drowning is increasing. Even if you just have a kiddy pool on your back deck, you can never be too safe. Taking measures to prevent kids from drowning is an important step to make your home child-safe.
Never leave children unattended with water, even if it’s only a few inches. I make my children wear a life jacket or flotation device even playing in the kiddy pool, just to stress to them the importance of water safety. It’s important for kids to learn to swim as early as possible to give you both peace of mind.
I hope these 4 tips will help you make your home child-safe! Please leave a comment below with additional safety tips for others and be sure to share this post with your friends so we can all have safer homes.
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