September is a big month! We are all settling into new back to school schedules. Things are a bit different…. busier… more structured but also more chaotic than summer. That said – this is also a good time to make your home as safe as possible for your children…. because we all know that when chaos or new schedules enter the picture there is an opportunity for things to get missed. We don’t want the thing that gets overlooked to be your child’s safety! Perhaps this is why September is also Baby Safety Month!
Here are 5 quick safety checks around your home that you can do right now:
1. Shelves and Coat Hangers – with back to school, kids often need to get dressed quickly, and heavy backpacks and lunch boxes are getting hung up. I know my kids fly in the house and if their backpacks make it on the hook of our coat hanger I am lucky… but I’d hate for that luck to turn into a trip to the ER if the whole thing were to fall on them. Make sure that your coat hanger is properly weighted (perhaps even anchored to the ground) so when a backpack is placed on them, they don’t topple over onto a child. Also be sure that dressers are anchored to the walls. This way, should you child decide to use the drawers as stairs to get to the socks at the very top drawer, they don’t have the whole thing come down on top of them.
2. Laundry Room - If you are like me, you love the ease of laundry pacs – especially with the uptick of laundry these days (why do they need to wear 4 outfits in one day???). But please also be sure the containers to your laundry pacs are closed, and that the container is up high on a shelf away from a child’s reach. Tide PODS and Gain Flings also have special child-resistant packaging available that further deters children from accidently accessing laundry pacs. These include the Child-Guard Zipper on bags of laundry pacs (requires engaging a notch to open the bag) and the new Child-Guard Lid on their tubs (requires squeezing and turning the lid to open much like a child-resistant medicine bottle).
3. Battery Operated Alarms - Now is a great time to check the batteries in both your fire alarms and carbon monoxide alarms. Both fire and carbon monoxide alarms should be on each level of your home. Also be sure to dispose of batteries immediately so that little hands do not grab them and put them in their mouths!
4. Medicine Cabinets - With back to school, also comes cold and flu season. For the past several mornings, I have had to give 2 out of 3 of my kids allergy medicine in the mornings. Be extra cautious to put the lid securely back on the bottle and return it to its spot in the medicine cabinet (high and away from kids). Often this is the last thing I do before they head out the door; it is so easy to just be lazy put it on the counter as I search for my keys so I make sure this is part of my routine!
5. Sharp Items - Be sure that your sharp items (like scissors and knives) are in a secured drawer (or I like to turn my cutting block in my kitchen to the side so knives and scissors are not easy to grab). Now that my youngest has started preschool and is learning to use scissors, he is all about cutting. I want to be sure he only has access to child safety scissors….. and paper that he can cut and not another child’s homework (but that is a whole other story).
What other areas of your house have you found that need to be watched carefully and child proofed? Be sure to comment below and let other parents know!
I am a member of the P&G Fabric Care Advisory Board. All ideas and opinions express are my own.
