Every day children are injured at home. How can we make our homes safer for our little ones? The following ideas are presented as an aid to keeping children safe from potential hazards around the home. 

• Lock all cleaning products, medicines, vitamins and cosmetic items (including shampoos, soaps, toothpaste and mouthwashes) out of the reach of children.

• Keep scissors, razor blades, tools and knives in a locked cupboard and out of the reach of children.

• Unload, take apart and lock up all firearms. Store ammunition in a locked cupboard or drawer separate from your firearms. Teach your older child (3 years and up) that guns are not toys. Tell him that if he sees a child with a gun or sees a gun lying around, he should run and tell a grown-up. Emphasize that he should not touch the gun because the gun can hurt him or someone else.

• Check floors and carpets regularly for small items such as paper clips, coins and buttons. If at all possible, keep office items such as staples, paper clips, etc. in a room not accessible to child.

• Very young children love to put things in their mouths. Be sure, if you have older children, that their toys are kept away from infants and toddlers. Their toys may have smaller pieces that their younger siblings can choke on.

• To determine whether an object is small enough to choke a young child, take a standard size toilet paper roll and drop the object through the roll. If the object can fall through into the roll, it is small enough for a child to choke on.

• Cover all electrical outlets with caps and/or covers to prevent children from putting objects in them. Electrical shock and burns, at the very least, are painful. At their worst, they can be fatal.

• Wrap mini blind cords and other hanging/dangling cords securely and put them up out of reach of children so they do not become entangled in cords.

• Throw away those plastic bags and wrappers. A child can get one around his face and suffocate.

• Install high locks on doors leading outside. Once your toddler learns to open a door, he'll be outside in a flash!

• Remove all heavy objects from tables and counters so that toddlers do not pull them down on top of themselves. Also keep lamps out of reach of toddlers. Broken glass from fallen lamps cause painful lacerations.

• Secure heavy furniture such as bookshelves to the wall so that furniture is not pulled over on child. We have done this in our home by securing L brackets to the backs of furniture and to studs in the walls. You can find L brackets in your hardware store.

• Pad sharp corners of shelves and tables to prevent head and eye injuries. Be sure the padding is securely attached to the furniture so that it can not be removed by young children who might be tempted to put the corner padding in their mouths. You can find corner padding devices in the infant or hardware sections of large department stores. *Note: we had to secure our plastic corner padding devices with screws because the sticky backing was not secure enough. Small hands can work them loose.

• Secure or block windows so that children can not fall out of them. A screen is not secure enough to keep children from falling out of windows as the weight of the child can push the screen out of the window.

• Never leave containers filled with water unattended. Empty buckets, tubs and sinks promptly. Use a child lock on toilet seats. Children can drown in a very small amount of liquid.

• Close off stairways with secure gates so that toddlers do not climb and fall.

• Secure a safety screen/grill around fireplace to discourage children from playing near the fire. If you can not attend to the child, do not use the fireplace or ensure the child does not have access to the room where the fireplace is.

• When preparing food, keep handles of pots and pans turned toward back of stove to prevent child from grabbing the handles and spilling hot foods or liquids on himself. It is best to keep young children out of the kitchen when you have foods bubbling on the stove top or in the oven (we used safety gates to keep our little ones out of the kitchen).

Children are curious and tenacious. Even when we do our best to make our home child-safe, nothing can take the place of active parental supervision. Supervision combined with safety precautions can help protect our children from serious household injuries and hazards.