Top Tips to Childproof your Home

Greetings again everyone, I have another guest poster on the blog today, she is very kindly stepping in for me to give you guys a total gem to read while I am busy writing another book for someone. So please welcome Diana from Zero Commission to talk about the ever important topic of childproofing your home. 

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Childproofing your house might appear to be such a daunting task, but any mum (and dad!) knows a child’s safety is worth all the effort. As mum to two toddlers, I get nervous when I see the statistics on child injuries that occur at home. The tiniest preventions, I’ve learned, can definitely go a long, long way.

And when is the best time to start childproofing your home? The correct answer is yesterday while the second best answer is now.

Whether your baby is still in your belly or you have a two year old bouncing around, most of us can never childproof our houses enough. For parents with newborns, you’d be surprised how fast time passes by. Before you know it, your bundle of joy will be crawling and touching everything in sight!

I’ve outlined certain sections and parts of your home that you’ll need to focus on in order to create a hazard-free zone for the little ones in your life.

Cabinets and Drawers

Cabinets and drawers can be dangerous to children because of what they store. These can include sharp objects, medication, and objects than can lead to choking.

Your best bet in childproofing cabinets and drawers is to install latches. The latches are typically placed inside drawers and cabinets that are within a child’s reach. You may also find knob latches that attach on knobs. Put in as many of these devices as possible. Toddlers can climb quickly and the drawer that seems out of a child’s reach in your eyes may surprisingly be within easy distance, especially for extra curious and energetic tots.

In cases of irregular cabinets that don’t work with any latch you can find, the safest option is to empty out said cabinet or drawer. Use the space to store child-friendly things instead like toys. Absolutely hazardous objects like poisons and chemicals should be kept totally out of any child’s reach.

Ovens, Stoves and Other Appliances

The kitchen can be the most dangerous room in the house. Within easy reach are knives, hot food and more. The height of most stoves make it terribly too convenient for inquisitive toddlers to explore and get hurt. As for ovens, you’d be surprised to hear how common it is for children to crawl inside.

The seemingly innocuous dishwasher is also a minefield of danger. Inside dishwashers we tend to store knives and objects that can break. A refrigerator with yummy treats can provide choking hazards or a space where a child can crawl into and possibly suffocate.

What’s the best way to keep your kitchen child-friendly? Put in locking latches on all appliances that have the ability to open and close shut. As for stoves, knob covers can help in keeping your child from turning on burners. Look into a stove guard as well to keep your kid’s hands protected.

When cooking, turn in pot handles so they don’t get knocked over. Keeping the pot handles turned inwards will furthermore prevent your little one from grabbing them and ending up scalded. There are dishwashers that come with built-in child locks.

I don’t allow my children to play in the kitchen. That’s just asking for trouble. These latches and other childproof gadgets make the room a safer place but I take it a step further by keeping my toddlers away from the kitchen as much as possible.

Stairs

The majority of nonfatal injuries involving small children occur from falls. Unprotected stairways are one of the main culprits involved in these falls. Did you know that baby walkers cause more harm than any other kind of baby product? Some major organizations like the American Academy of Paediatrics have requested the banning of baby walkers. If you insist on allowing your child to use a baby walker, make sure they use it away from stairs and other places where they can fall.

Keep your stairways safe by putting in safety gates at both the bottom and the top of stairs. At the top of your stairs, install a gate with a secure latch. Don’t pick a pressure-type gate for the top.

Remove all clutter from the stairs so nobody trips. This includes shoes. When your small child is learning to climb the stairs, always keep them supervised.

Tables

The sharp corners of tables, especially low tables like coffee tables, are dangerous for babies who are learning to walk. When they use these tables to “cruise”, they can bump their heads or injure themselves in other ways on the sharp corners.

Put in table cushions to avoid mishaps. Look into specific brands that fit correctly on the corners. There are cushions that fit all the way around tables as well.

Plants

You’d be surprised to know how many common houseplants are poisonous to us humans (and pets). Even those that aren’t toxic may pose a choking hazard.

Always know the kind of plants you have at home. Remove any rocks in the potting material. Kids love to pick up rocks and marbles--these are dangerous choking hazards. All toxic plants should be completely out of your kid’s reach or, better yet, discarded from your home.

Childproofing your home is an ongoing process. As your child grows and becomes more curious, you’ll have to do more work to keep your place safe. Don’t let this stress you out. Our children are not going to be babies forever, after all. This is all temporary and the right precautions will protect your child tremendously.

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Diana Lyn Mitjavile is a content writer for Zero Commission, an Australian online real estate agency based in Tasmania. The company helps sell any Australian home for a fixed fee and will take absolutely zero commission.

Their blog has amazing tips for homeowners like Mistakes to Avoid when Selling Your Home without an Agent, Top 5 Green and Eco-Friendly Home Improvement Projects to Undertake for Your House and How to Take Great Real Estate Photos with Your iPhone.

Contact her at Diana@zerocommission.com.au

Hard lesson to learn - RIP Jill Meagher

So for any of my wonderful readers from Australia, Ireland or New Zealand, you have probably heard the tragic story of Jill Meagher (pronounced Maher for all of you playing at home) who was murdered last week while walking home from the pub. For any of you who haven't heard the story yet, Jill, a young Irish woman who lived in Melbourne's north with her husband was walking the 4 blocks from a local pub to her home at around 1:30 in the morning when she disappeared. Despite attempts to find her made by her family and thousands of people spreading the news through Facebook, she never made it back home, and her body was found several days later. Yesterday a man from Coburg was arrested and today he was charged with her rape and murder. He was considered a suspect after CCTV footage captured him following Jill home.

Now there are a couple of things that make this story really stand out. The first is the shock that people feel that she was attacked in the middle of a busy street, given how popular the area is where she was, the people who live there are horrified how close this was to home. It has also come as a surprise to everyone who has watched this story unfold how quickly her attacker has been arrested and brought to court over this crime. Now I actually used to live in Coburg, and I walked down Sydney Road where she was attacked on a daily basis, but it doesn't surprise me that someone could be attacked on that road. But then it doesn't surprise me when anyone is attacked in Melbourne. Anyone from Melbourne might remember when the city trialled a new curfew system a couple of years ago, as an attempt to reduce the amount of alcohol related crimes in and around Melbourne. Violence is inevitable when huge crowds of people gather in small areas and drink alcohol.

Now the thing that really surprises me about this case is that Jill insisted on walking home alone that night. I'm not sure if she thought her close proximity to her home made her safer, or the high levels of traffic, but for some reason she refused a friend's offer to walk her home and paid the ultimate price for it. On the news today a lot of people were saying that they were going to be more vigilant in making sure the women in their families didn't make the same mistake, but I cannot for the life of me understand why people have become so relaxed about personal safety as to think they will be fine walking the streets of Melbourne unescorted at night. And I'm not just talking about women here either. It is not only the fairer sex who are the targets of muggers, murderers and other bad guys these days.

I cannot say that I have never found myself having to walk through the suburbs alone, but I tried not to make a habit of it. One night I was trying to get home from work when I got to the very beginning of Sydney Road and found that all public transport had been shut down from that point forward after a gangland shooting had occurred at the Brunswick Club. I found myself more than 2 km from home in the dark with no choice but to start walking and hope for the best. I decided that I would be safer if I could find someone who was going the same way as I was and ask them to escort me, so I chose a young gentleman I had seen travelling on the same tram as me. He very kindly obliged and walked me all the way to the end of Sydney Road at which point I was only 2 blocks from home and felt safe enough making the rest of the trip on my own. Now I was told afterwards that I had made a foolish blunder by asking some strange man to walk me home, especially as there was a rogue gunman wandering around the streets, and I couldn't guarantee that he wasn't now my escort. But my argument here was given that the gangs of North Melbourne were mostly of Mediterranean descent, my 6 foot tall red headed escort wearing an Akubra hat was the most unlikely candidate I could find. (I'm not kidding you, he was wearing an Akubra in the middle of the city. You couldn't get more country if you tried.) Now I was lucky that my new friend wasn't an opportunist just waiting to take advantage of a young and vulnerable woman, but I felt at the time that having his company was a better alternative to no company at all.

I don't know if my suspicion of the people of Melbourne comes from being a country girl, but mum drummed into all of us the dangers of walking the streets alone at night, to the point that I won't even do it in my home town. Now I live in a very small town, but that doesn't mean that criminals don't live here. And I will always make sure I don't find myself in any positions where I could be in danger. And I will be teaching Miss K the same awareness, because it doesn't matter where you are, you can never be too careful. And if she ever does move to the city, I'll be teaching her my old tricks too, like the home made flame thrower made with a can of deodorant and a lighter. I know this is probably highly illegal, but I would always have my aerosol can in one hand, my lighter in the other, and my hands in my pockets as I walked. I don't even know if it would have worked, and luckily for me I never had to test it, but I always felt slightly safer on my trips.

In the aftermath of this horrible tragedy, there are now people springing up saying that Brunswick is a dangerous town and to avoid it. This will not solve anything, this will in fact only make life harder for the shop owners on Sydney Road. These people rely on the heavy stream of traffic that runs constantly along this road, and the money that they bring with them. In fact it was the security cameras in and around these businesses that helped to identify the man responsible for Jill's murder. (I don't care if people think it will turn this world into Big Brother, there can never be too many CCTV cameras in the city.) Now I am only too familiar with the effect that comments like these can have on areas affected by horrendous crimes, my home town is still trying to drag our name out of the mud after a little boy was killed here over ten years ago. We still get called bogans and other horrible things, and if you tell anyone that you're from here, his name is usually the first thing that they come out with. (To the point that I stopped admitting I came from here for the longest time.) The thing is this was one isolated act performed by one isolated person, but it's the rest of the town that has to live with the reputation of being dangerous. Brunswick is a lovely town full of tonnes of bridal stores (apparently one isn't enough) and other awesome shops, and their owners shouldn't have to suffer because of one dangerous individual.

So while Jill's family come to terms with her tragic end, and the rest of Melbourne also grieve this waste of life there is one very important thing to learn from this, and that is never walk the streets alone at night. There is no such thing as being too cautious, and the more friends you can surround yourself with, the safer you will be.

Well that's my lecture over for another night, I'm off to bed. Stay awesome my lovely readers, and more importantly, stay safe.