Your Ultimate Guide To Babyproofing Your Home

When you are bringing a baby home for the very first time, or after a long time, it can be a very exciting and quite nerve-wracking experience on the whole. There are a lot of things that you are going to need to consider along the way, and one of the main ones is the home itself, and whether or not it is the kind of home that is actually safe to have a child in, let alone a newborn baby.

Everyone finds that there is a surprising amount they need to change in their home before they are happy taking their baby home. Of course, the earlier you start repairing and preparing all of this, the more of a chance it will give you to do it right, and to get it done in time without any hassle. So let’s take a look right now at some of the most important things you need to consider when you are babyproofing your home.

Nursery

Most parents-to-be like to get the nursery set up nice and early, and this is certainly quite a good idea to consider if you want to make sure that you are ready for your newborn’s arrival. Of course, if you are going to be doing this, you might as well ensure from the very start that it is going to be as baby-proofed as possible, as that is going to be the kind of thing that can be harder to achieve after the fact. So what kinds of things do you need to pay attention to when you are trying to babyproof the nursery?

First and foremost, the crib. This should be a regulation crib, made professionally and safely, and one which is not likely to cause you or the baby any unforeseen problems. It really is not worth skimping on the crib, and if there is one thing to just dish out for, it’s this. The placement of it is important too – not under any shelves, or anything that might fall on your baby’s head, for instance, and not by a window. You also need to remember that keeping it bare is what matters most, so avoid pillows and the like.

As well as that, you will want to make sure that there is a baby monitor in the room, and this needs to be placed well enough so you can hear the baby – and see them, if you have that kind of baby monitor. Make sure the cord is well away from the crib, too, and that the range can cover your entire home.

Bathrooms

However many bathrooms you have in the home, these are going to require a lot of attention if you want to make sure that they are as safe as possible for a baby to live there. The bathroom can be absolutely full of hazards and possible dangers, and it is actually one of the most important and yet difficult rooms to babyproof on the whole. It is certainly a room you should never leave your baby unattended, though of course you won’t be doing that anywhere anyway.

In terms of how to actually get the bathroom ready for a baby to be in the home, it’s mostly a case of keeping dangerous items out of reach. That will mean you probably want to put locks on the cabinets, and keep cleaning supplies either locked away or somewhere very high where they are unlikely to fall. A locked medicine cabinet high up on the wall is ideal here.

You should also take a look at the bathtub and shower, to ensure that you are minimizing the chance of anything dangerous happening in the water. It’s best to have non-slip materials wherever possible, and there is a huge range of shower boards from floors to walls that you might want to consider for this kind of purpose. Just make sure there is no chance of your baby dropping into the tub’s water.

 

Make sure that you are considering these things for every bathroom in the home, because some new parents make the mistake of thinking that, for instance, their en-suite bathroom does not need this kind of attention. It really does, and you need to make sure that every room is as safe as possible long before the baby arrives in the home.

Kitchen

Another very important part of the home in terms of its potential for danger is the kitchen. You will always need to make sure that you are doing all you can to keep this room especially safe, and there are many things that you might want to bear in mind here too. One of the main things to consider is the many kitchen implements that you have which might hurt a child. These obviously need to be kept out of reach and ideally stored away somewhere that your baby can’t get to them, or even accidentally knock them off a surface by shaking it, for instance. Those are the kinds of things you have to think about in order to keep your kitchen safe for a baby.

Then of course, there’s the oven and the hobs, and any other hot cooking areas there might be in your kitchen. You need to make sure that your baby is not going to be able to burn themselves on this, so to help make sure that it’s wise to only use the back hobs rather than the front ones, and to take extra care when using the oven. Ideally, you will have your baby far away, but somewhere visible, while you are using the oven, to help keep them safe.

You might also want to take a look at the other appliances, in particular making sure that any loose ones are being screwed into place in the wall. You might be surprised at just how early on a child can start to pull appliances on top of himself as possible resulting in being crushed. And you should keep all small appliances utterly out of reach too, such as toasters and the like.

 

Living Room

For the main living room, keeping it baby-safe is mostly about keeping it as free of clutter as you possibly can. There are also particular dangers that you might want to look out for too. Probably the first one is this: do you have a fireplace? If so, you need to take great care, installing a safety guard around the fireplace and never allowing your child to go near it at any time. Having a fireplace gate like this should be sufficient, but it is something that you will definitely need to think about, so don’t overlook it.

Beyond that, you should ideally make sure that your living room is free of anything small that they might be able to pick up and eat – this will start happening much sooner than you think, so it’s good to be prepared right now and just keep on top of it as best as you can. If you can do that, you are going to have a living room which is much safer for your baby and child now and as they grow up.

Those are many of the things that you need to be aware of and arrange if you are going to successfully babyproof your home. Make sure that you are focused on these early on and then you can keep on top of them in the future too. You will have a babyproof home in no time.