Do you have a little one who runs around your home causing chaos every day? We like to say it’s chaos, but secretly, we love having them run around. There is so much joy in watching your children enjoy themselves around the house — even if it does involve opening every kitchen cupboard and pulling all the freshly washed and dried laundry out of the basket.
If you have a baby or toddler, your priority should be making your home child-friendly for them, to ensure their safety — their safety is paramount, after all. By making your home child-friendly you can prevent many accidents from happening, like them hitting their head on a sharp corner, or drinking something they shouldn’t from a kitchen cupboard low down.
From locking your kitchen doors and moving anything dangerous far back (if you are thinking about and researching custom kitchens, you could include child safety within the brief you give them) to adding baby gates and dedicated children playing zones, we have put together a handy guide on making your home child friendly. We hope this answers your questions and gives you some actionable items to do to reduce the chances of your little one getting hurt.
Locking your kitchen doors
The kitchen can be a very dangerous place for young children, when not set up and monitored correctly. If your children were to run in, without you knowing, what could they grab from your kitchen cupboards that are at their height? A lot of people keep cleaning products below the sink, glasses in cupboards down low and their cutlery could be reachable.
To reduce the risks of this happening, consider adding locks to your kitchen doors. Depending on how your kitchen is designed, you could get magnetic locks that stick to the back of the doors, meaning you don’t affect the aesthetics of the room.
Children’s stair gate
Stair gates are ideal for babies and toddlers! If there are any rooms that you don’t want them accessing, but you may need to go into when they are with you, a stair gate can easily be installed and used. A stair gate means you can put them on the other side, whilst you are in the room and they can still see and hear you and you can see them.
They are affordable, keep your family safe and a lot are pressure installed, reducing the need for you to drill into your walls. When buying, check the age range of the stair gate as some are for a maximum age of two, while others are for above two.
Dedicated play zone
Create a dedicated play zone that your children can enjoy and play in. This means they aren’t running around the house, hiding in places they shouldn’t be, and you can control what’s in their play zone, keeping them safe. Some people like to create a safe play zone within their main room, like their living room, whilst others like to use a spare bedroom as a safe play zone.
If you are after some inspiration, Pinterest has countless examples of dedicated play zones for children, which also include outside play zones, should your home have a garden for them to play in.
Be careful with your furniture
Your children will inevitably be grabbing your furniture and climbing over it. Because of this, you must check how heavy your furniture is and that it is stable and safe, as you don’t want your little one to pull on it and for it to fall on them. In a lot of cases, furniture pieces like a console table aren’t heavy and can fall over, and so can a bookcase.
To keep them from falling over if pulled on, you can drill and attach them to a wall. It’s easily done and will avoid anything happening by accident.
Rounded furniture
Rounded furniture is very child-friendly as the corners are rounded (hence rounded furniture). Children have gotten many cuts, bruises, and scrapes on sharp edges, but rounded edges reduce the likelihood of injury. If you have any sharp corners that you are worried about, you can buy corner protectors that attach to the corners making them rounded.
Kid-friendly paint
Your walls are going to be a target for your children’s artistic talents at some point or another. Their sticky hands will touch the paint or wallpaper, covering them in streaks, smudges, or drawings. To avoid the hassle of having to keep repainting, you can buy kid-friendly paint (washable, obviously), which is easily wipeable. This will stop any stains from remaining once they accidentally draw on the wall with crayons.
You can also set up a large framed area with rolling paper for them to get artsy with whenever they’re feeling creative, hopefully sparing your walls.
We hope our guide has given you some inspiration on how to make your home child-friendly. Some of our tips can be done immediately, while others can wait and be done as your children advance. For example, if you have a baby, a stair gate isn’t needed until they start to crawl or walk.
One tip that has always stuck in our heads when you have little ones, is that when checking your home is safe, get on your children’s level. Go on all fours and view the room from the view that they have. More often than not, you will see things that you don’t see from an adult’s viewpoint which aren’t safe and should be changed. For example, if you have any loose wires that are under the TV unit, which they could reach when crawling or something in the corner of the room that is hard to view from above.
What tips would you recommend to someone trying to make their home child-friendly? Which of the above tips did you find most useful? Is there anything missing in our guide? Let us know in the comment box below, we look forward to hearing from you.