13 ways to childproof your home

Life moves fast for an expanding young family. When you’ve got a new child on the way, you may not have the luxury of a slow, considered approach. More likely, you’ll have to sell your too-small home fast to a cash buyer, and quickly get into a new home with an extra bedroom you can use as a nursery, and a yard that’ll hold a swing set.

But the faster you have to move, the more likely it is you’ll overlook some safety issues in your home. Whether that’s a steep staircase, unsecured electrical outlets, or a sharp-cornered fireplace hearth, you’ll need to childproof your new home. Here are 13 of our best tips on how you can make your home safe for the precious new addition(s) to your family.

Turn down your water heater

Toddlers love to turn knobs and pull switches, so make sure your water heater isn’t a scalding hazard by turning the temperature down to 120 degrees or less. The water will still be hot

enough for showering and washing dishes, but it won’t be hot enough to scald your child.

Gate your staircases

Stairs are an obvious hazard to small children, so baby gates at both ends of your staircases are a must. Lightweight, plastic, removable baby gates offer convenience and affordability, but they aren’t necessarily as safe as they should be. It’s preferable to drill into a wall stud to firmly mount the gate.

Experts also suggest revisiting your baby gates periodically. A gate that’s strong enough to stop a 9-month-old may not offer a 2-year-old much resistance.

Anchor your furniture

When your baby starts pulling itself up on things, any furniture that’s unstable or has a high center of gravity becomes a hazard. Dressers and bookshelves are some of the most common tipping hazards around the house, as are televisions.

Anchors are inexpensive, easy to install, and will secure these items, so they don’t tip or fall onto your child.

Rethink framed pictures

If you have framed family photos around, make sure they’re in a place where a child has absolutely no access to them. Even if they’re in frames without sharp edges or corners, the glass fronts can shatter if a child pulls them onto the floor.

Relocate your coffee table

It can be tempting to add soft bumpers to your coffee table’s corners, so you can keep it in your living room with minimized risk of falling and bumping. But the wiser course of action is to just move it to a less central area — ideally a room where the baby won’t go. It’ll give the child more room to crawl and play, and it removes a hazard from the room.

Move matches and candles to a high, safe place

Matches are an obvious danger, and a tipped-over candle could cause a fire or burn your child. Children may also try to eat candles, which are both toxic and a choking hazard. If you love the look of candlelight around your house, experts suggest replacing your candles with LED flameless ones.

Cordon off your fireplace

This is another tip that might seem like a no-brainer — but we’re not just talking about protecting your child from a roaring wood fire. The stone hearth itself, with its sharp edges and corners, can be dangerous to children. Install padding on the edges, or secure the area.

If you have charcoal briquettes or small stones in the fireplace itself, those can be a choking hazard, and the fire-stoking tools can be very dangerous to children. It’s best to keep them locked away in a closet when they’re not being used.

Remove cleaning products from high-traffic areas

Even if you have childproof latches on your cabinets, there’s still a chance your child could get to your cleaning products, especially if you keep them under the sink. To be extra safe, put them in the garage or some place that’s inaccessible to your child. Bleaches, soaps, and other common household cleaners can be highly toxic if ingested, even in small quantities.

This includes laundry products. Secure your laundry room, and treat your dryer sheets and detergents with the same caution as you would your other household cleaners. Many experts suggest keeping your laundry supplies in locked overhead cabinets.

Secure electrical cords and outlets

For electrical outlets, a simple outlet cover will block access and prevent accidents. Make sure your outlet covers fit snugly in the outlet, and can’t be easily pried out. The best outlet covers attach to the outlet plate itself, so it’s difficult for a child to remove by hand.

With cords, keep them out of sight behind furniture, bundled together, and consider using cord covers to prevent tampering.

Double-check your windows

Window falls are a very serious household hazard, so make sure your windows are secure. Special stops can be installed to restrict the maximum window opening to only a few inches. These window stops screw directly into the window frame, and are very secure. If window stops aren’t an appealing option, simple window guards, which are usually made of mesh or bars, are also very effective.

Put away your tablecloth

If you keep a tablecloth on your dining room table, remove it until your children are older. Dangling tablecloths can be irresistible to small children, and if they pull them off the table, they’ll bring down everything on the table, too. If that includes hot foods or knives, that’s a major injury risk.

As a replacement, placemats are stylish, easily cleaned, and child-safe.

Close off your bathrooms

The bathroom is probably the single most hazardous room of the house. Between cleaners under the sink, pills in the medicine cabinet, hard porcelain or metal surfaces, and water everywhere, there are risks to your child in every corner. The easiest way to mitigate that risk is to simply bar your child from the room, by locking your bathroom, using a door knob cover, and closing it off with a gate.

For an extra layer of security, you should also secure the toilet seat lid and cabinets with childproof locks, just in case they ever get into the bathroom.

Mind your window blind cords

Those thin hanging cords from Venetian blinds are responsible for many emergency room visits for children. The hanging string-and-knob is fascinating to small toddlers, but they can easily become entangled in it or pull the whole window treatment down on top of themselves. Experts suggest fastening the cords up high, where your child can’t reach them, or transitioning to cordless blinds.

Written by Billy Guteng. October 13, 2023

Billy is a content writer for Kukun. He was born in France, and has lived in multiple cities around the world ever since. He loves art, design and architecture as well as construction and real estate.