A six-point checklist to make sure your little one is safe in their room

Your little one’s room is perhaps the only place in your home where he or she can be left unattended. Therefore, it is crucial for you to pay attention to the following checklist and making sure your child’s room is safe for him or her.

• Starting with your child’s crib or bed, you have to keep in mind that there should not be bumper pads or bedding until your little one is a year old as these items have been accounted for more than 30 deaths in the recent past. For that reason, your child’s bed only needs a bed linen. Breathable Bumpers are safe as well.
• Moving on to your child’s furniture, it should be safely secured to the wall with some sort of furniture bracket. This is because falling articles of furniture can seriously injure your baby.

• Next in the checklist are power outlets. Unsurprisingly, outlets can be very risky for little children. To make them safe, you should cover each outlet with a sliding or a plug-in cover.
• If left unsupervised, your child can mess with the windows and get hurt. Thus, you should make sure that your windows are secured by a window latch or mesh guard so that your little one cannot open them.
• It goes without saying that if there are any electronics in your child’s room, they need to be kept out of reach from your child.
• Next are the doors. Now, this is an area that calls for special attention. Kids are inherently very curious, and their inquisitiveness may often put them at risk. They may try to put their fingers in places they should not be – for example, a closing door. So, make sure the doors in your child’s room, as well as all other doors in the home he or she can easily access, have door safety products installed on them in order to avoid smashed finger accidents.

By having regard to this checklist, you can effectively baby proof your home and ensure that your baby is safe and satisfied at all times. But what about places where you have no control - like your child’s day care centre or school? Fortunately, most day care centres and schools in the U.K. adhere to appropriate safety measures to keep children out of harm’s way. Door finger guards for schools and day care centres are also more or less a standard all around the U.K.