Babies and radiators - how can you protect them?

[RooneyMara]

Hi,

it's the first time I've had a tiny baby and radiators and they seem to get very hot.
Some are behind sofas etc but what do you do about the ones that are accessible to a crawling baby?

We just turned the boiler down so the radiators aren't that hot - they are hot enough to hold your hand on without burning.

When they went near them, we just put our hands on the radiator then quickly took them off, saying "Hot! Don't touch". They soon learn!

I have turned the temp of the radiators down on the boiler itself. Though I still make sure I warn dd that they are hot and to stear clear as other people might have hot radiators.

Can you turn the overall temp down so they don't get too boiling hot?

When we moved here ours were scalding. I turned a thing on the boiler down a notch and now they are hot enough to heat house adequately but won't burn you.

Keep an eye on your baby at all times and tell him not to touch the radiators.

oh cool - thankyou. I've already got the hot water set at the lowest which is 40 degrees, but had a look at boiler and have turned the 'thermostat' setting down to 5 instead of 9 - see if that makes any odds.

The rads have got thermostats on each one though and if I turn those down surely it'l just be too cold in the house?

Depending on your baby they may learn "hot!" pretty quickly.

You need your hot water hotter than 40 to prevent legionella or other bacterial growth in it, my plumber told me that there is a narrow band which is hot enough for that but not hot enough to scald and that is what it should be set at, you would need to google it. 40 is only just above body temp - surely you need your water hotter than that for baths, washing up etc anyway?

Oh I didn't know that.

40 seems perfectly alright for baths etc - much too hot without some cold added.

I'll have a google and see what it says. Thanks all

I have found they touch them once and don't tend to go back a second time. Even a baby has a reflex to pull away from something hot. My youngest of 4 is 14 months and said "oh oh" with her hand out flat like for stop at the cooker top yesterday. As they get mobile we have always put hand out like a stop motion and gone "oh oh hot, no touching" , babies cotton on to things much faster than we think they will.