to ask about your child safety bumpf at home?

[cjt110]

Now DS is standing, aswell as crawling, we need to be looking at safety equipping the house. We have heavy fire doors which (so far) he hasnt realised can open. Our kitchen is mainly drawers with a recessed handle so he hasnt figured out how to o-pen them yet. The cupboard with all the cleaning products in has a recessed handle too but I am definitely not leaving that one to chance. We have another cupboard that actually has a handle but is full of casserole dishes etc under the oven. The oven is counter height. Most of our plug sockets are already covered by units etc.

What are the best safety devices you have found and what were the most pointless?

Do watch the tv sets, a child here in the US famously died in this way a few years back which really made people concerned about large electronic equipment.

Sets of drawers should be fixed to the wall.

A few years ago twins were playing on their own in a bedroom, they pulled all the drawers out and the unit toppled over onto them and killed both of them.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1479584/The-day-I-found-my-twins-crushed-to-death.html

The twins and drawers.

Just remembered another one that DD1 did that caught me by surprise and could have been lot worse. I have a bedding chest in our bedroom that has spare material and wool etc for making things. My sewing box with scissors and needles and pins I had put out of her reach elsewhere. Still I woke up to her screaming when she was a toddler. She'd woken up and decided to root in the box and found and jabbed the roof of her mouth with a knitting needle ...

We taught our kids about release handles inside car trunks. I let them lock me in to demonstrate.
I also used to safety test nerf guns, etc, by having them shot at me so I could feel if it hurt.

This must make me sound a bit loco, but the kids listened if our safety lectures had a bit of fun.

I am teaching shutting doors, car doors with both hands fully on the door so no trapped fingers. Although he has managed to just wedge his fingers into a locked truck and get them trapped anyway.

LondonRocks, the socket covers was a new one to me too. Turns out UK plugs are inherently safe, and socket covers are unregulated and could make plugs less safe by bypassing the "shutter" safety mechanism and allowing skinny metal things like paper clips to be poked in alongside the safety plug pins and potentially electrocute the kid.

www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/

Fwiw, I generally followed my LO round the flat once he started exploring, watching what he found interesting and baby proofing those things as far as I could. He's 2 now and we're still watching and learning! He figured out cupboard locks pretty quickly though, they were a waste of money. The magnetic ones that you unlock with a key look good, I'd try them next time.

We haven't bothered with socket covers. I would recommend using lidded insulated cups for hot drinks the amount of children who get burned from pulling a hot drink over them is scary. We also got a lock for our fridge as I was sick of DS helping himself/making a mess.

to repeat: in the UK socket covers are not a matter of 'bothering' they ACTUALLY MAKE THINGS LESS SAFE.

never buy them. Spread the word. A ban is well overdue.

The only safety thing we have in the house is a stairgate on DD bedroom door,our stairs are really wide and with very narrow rails at the bannister and I juts cant find one that will fit. so the gate is on her bedroom door just incase she ever figures out how to climb out her cot. The living room door is always closed so she cant get out to the stairs without us though she is very good at crawling up the stairs.

Have some catches for the kitchen cabinets that i've still to attach but other than that we have nothing else.

It may be we are a bit too releaxed.

special I agree...and but take a look around eg toddler groups, nurseries even school run nurseries. Up to recently, locally, I noticed they all have socket covers.
I am surprised that the inspectors haven't told them to remove them - these are groups that have good ratings for environment etc. Either the inspectors and managers aren't aware of the danger or maybe the managers do know but are too scared to remove them in case it upsets the inspectors - so I think we should target them (inspectors).
If they were removed from these premises and that information was relayed to the parents the issue would be more well known and a ban probably wouldn't be needed....

I have a 5 and 3 yr old. I had a stairgate across the kitchen door until youngest was about 2 and one at the bottom of the stairs so they couldn't go up unsupervised.
Didn't have one at the top as we rent so has to be pressure fit. I thought having a metal bar across the floor at the top of the stairs when open was far more dangerous than not having a gate (was scared I'd trip over carrying a child).
I've felt anything else was necessary.
We don't have any safety stuff now.

Another issue with socket covers is that kids learn to take them out, but not necessarily put them back in the correct way, opening the shutters and exposing the live pins (3 yr olds can do this with some of the cheaper ones).

However it should be noted that the advice about not using socket covers only applies to the UK, you really should use them in the US for example!

We have stairgates at top and bottom of stairs, at the kitchen door and across the bedroom door. Ds is older but when upset is prone to throwing himself about including on the stairs. He also stil wants to mess with the cooker.
We have a fireguard, drawer catches, everything is fixed to the wall and all blind cords are tied up. The back gate has a bolt on it and the front door is always locked. All the windows have locks on.

We have limiters on upstairs windows so you can't open them very far. Better than locking them imo.

We have a fire guard but only put the fire on after bed time. We have locks on the cupboard under the sink. The best safety purchase was a travel cot to put ds in as a play pen in the kitchen. If I couldn't watch him I would pop him in there. We called it baby prison.

We don't have anything apart from foam corner covers for the hearth in the living room. Very sharp corners on a stone hearth. No stair gates, no cupboard locks.