Baby Safety Tips
Once your baby is mobile, making your home safer is almost a daily chore. Here, we give you some general safety tips that will help keep your child out of harm’s way. Please remember that by no means is this a complete list but rather a guide to help you begin to recognize the less obvious dangers that may exist in your home. We can give you a specific list of safety recommendations that you should implement in your home only after conducting a home safety evaluation.
- Keep coins, small toys, jewelry, cosmetics, medication, contact lenses, plastic water bottle caps, etc. off of nightstands and out of infant’s reach. Tip: Any item that is small enough to fit inside a cardboard toilet paper roll is a potential choking hazard.
- Remove the crib bumper pad as soon as your infant can get up on all fours since baby may use it as a step to climb out.
- Position audio/video cameras away from the crib so baby cannot pull the wire through crib slats and bite onto it.
- Remove dish towels that are hanging on the oven door – young children can pull on these and pull the door down onto themselves.
- Do not keep pet food and cat litter boxes where your child can get to them.
- If you have older children, be sure the locks are always engaged on baby’s highchair so that an older toddler can’t roll the highchair over to the countertop or oven.
- Keep all furniture on casters or furniture that can be climbed on away from balcony/stair railings and windows.
- Remove mobiles and other hanging toys from the crib as soon as your child can reach up and touch them.
- Set your water heater to 120 degrees or below. Higher water temperature can severely burn a child within seconds.
- Keep all mouthwash, rubbing alcohol, hair care products, vitamins, medication, toothpaste with fluoride, etc. out of reach. Remember, caps are not child proof, merely child resistant. A determined child can open a safety cap with perseverance.
- Don’t use tablecloths – a baby will pull them and what’s on them down.
- Never leave standing water in a tub, sink or bucket. It takes very little water to create a drowning hazard.
- Get down on all fours yourself and look at the “world” from your child’s perspective. Be sure to look under radiators, under furnishings, on the underside of upholstered furniture for loose staples, etc. What you find will likely surprise you!
- Remove items from around the tub ring (shampoo, conditioner, razors). When bar soap becomes small enough, it becomes a choking hazard. Often overlooked, is where you may place bathroom air fresheners and room deodorizers – keeping them on the floor near the toilet is not an option.
- Plants can be toxic. Check to be sure all plants in your home and garden are not poisonous.
- Remove all dry cleaning plastic wrappers before storing clothes in the closets and never let children play with plastic bags/wrappers of any kind.
- Remove magnets from refrigerators and push pins from cork boards, they can easily fall off, creating dangerous choking hazards.
- While bathing a toddler, keep all electrical appliances such as razors, toothbrushes, hair blowers, curling irons, radios, etc. unplugged and out of reach of children. Water and electricity are a fatal combination.
- Be sure there are holes or openings in any toy chests to provide air if a child climbs in and gets trapped.
- The garbage should be off limits, at all times, to toddlers.
- Children mimic what they see – never let a young child play with a neck tie, a dog leash, a scarf, a handbag with a shoulder strap – to prevent strangulation.
