Safety in your home

Every parent wants their child to grow up healthy and strong in a safe environment.

Young children are naturally curious and love to explore. From the time your child starts to crawl and pull to stand, this newfound mobility will mean you may need to make changes to your house to make it safe for him to explore.

The good news is that there are simple and easy steps that you can take to protect your child from accidents and injuries.

Preventing Falls

• Install approved safety gates at the top and bottom of staircases, and attach them to the wall if possible.
• Keep your baby and young child secured when using high chairs, swings or strollers.
• When removing your baby from a carrier, place the carrier on the floor and not on top of furniture such as a table.
• Properly install window guards and stops to prevent falls from height. Windows above the first floor should have an emergency release device in case of fire.

Furniture Safety

• Mount flat-panel televisions to the wall to prevent them from falling off stands.
• Use brackets, braces or wall straps to secure unstable or top-heavy furniture such as wardrobes, to the wall.

Fire Safety

• Keep flammable items, such as dish towels or wooden spoons, away from your stovetop.
• Have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen in case of emergency, and ensure you know how to use it.
• Blow out candles when you leave the room or before you go to sleep.
• In the event of a fire, leave your home immediately. Once you are out of the house, do not re-enter.

Preventing Burns & Scalds

• Do not carry your child while cooking on the stove. Place your child in a secured high chair where you can still see them.
• Keep an eye on appliances such as irons or hair dryers that can heat up quickly or stay warm. Unplug and store these items at a safe location after use.
• Keep appliance cords out of your child’s reach, especially if the appliances produce a lot of heat.
• Test the water temperature with your wrist or elbow before giving your baby a bath.
• To prevent hot food or liquid spills, use the back burner of your stove and turn pot handles
  away from the edge.
• Keep hot foods and liquids away from the edge of your counters and tables.

Water Safety

• Actively supervise your child in and around water.
• Avoid distractions of any kind, such as using mobile phones.
• Once bath time is over, drain the tub immediately.
• Keep toilet lids and the doors of bathrooms and laundry rooms closed to prevent drowning.
• Do not leave pails of water in the house as children can fall in.
• At an early age, teach your child not to go near or into water without an adult’s company. This includes small bodies of water like estate ponds or fountains.
• When at pools or beaches, all children should swim with an adult at any one time.

Remember, drowning in children can occur even with small amounts of water!

Poison Prevention

• Store all household products and cleaning solutions out of your child’s sight and reach. Remember that storage areas under kitchen or bathroom sinks are at the eye-level of young children.
• Keep cleaning products in their original containers. Do not store a potentially poisonous product in another container other than its original container, such as storing liquid detergent in a plastic fruit juice bottle, where your child may mistakenly consume the liquid detergent.

Medication Safety

• Store all medications and supplements out of reach and sight after every use. Young children may mistake them as candies, and ingesting even 1 or 2 tablets of adult medication can be toxic to a child.
• Use the dosing device (e.g. spoon, cup or syringe) that comes with the medicine, not a kitchen spoon. Kitchen spoons are not consistent in size, and a teaspoon or tablespoon used for cooking will not measure the same amount as the dosing device.

Reference: KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital