The Fort Lauderdale movers have done an excellent job of quickly and safely moving your household items to your new home. And the relocation van leaving heralds a stressful end to a hard moving day. You somehow manage to organize your thoughts and begin to form some unpacking strategy for the next few days. And in order to count every hour of unpacking, you must, as intended, prioritize your action plan. However, if you’ve just moved into a new home or apartment with an infant or toddler, you have a very important task ahead of you that you may not be aware of. That’s right, the first thing you need to do is to childproof your home after moving.
Why should you childproof your home after moving?
Childproofing exists to keep your young child as safe as possible from potential household hazards. They may arise in a strange and still unfamiliar environment such as your new home. By keeping your home safe for children, you will give your child a safe place to play, learn, and grow.
Experts agree that young children between the ages of 1 and 4 are highly susceptible to unintentional injury. Mostly from fire (burns), water (drowning), harmful substances (suffocation, poisoning), or falls. Therefore, you, as a parent, should do everything in your power to provide your kids with a safe home environment.
Every good child protection process has two main steps: identifying various domestic hazards and then eliminating them. The two phases of childproofing your home after moving are closely related. And the successful outcome of the entire operation depends solely on the success of each of the two safety phases. In other words, you cannot eliminate a potential hazard without first identifying it.
Prepare a room by room childproofing checklist
The child safety checklist for every room will be very helpful in identifying and eliminating the hazards that may lurk around every corner in every room. It is important to remember that your child does not perceive the world around him as an adult. So the best way to determine what can harm your child is to turn into a small child yourself. We know that you want to relax after a tough move, but this is something you have to do.
Children’s room
You should childproof the room in which your loved one will spend most of the time immediately after Lauderhill FL movers deliver your items to your new home. Here is how to do it:
- The crib should contain nothing but a fitted sheet on the mattress and your baby or toddler. No toys, blankets, quilts, or pillows are suitable for a baby bed. They increase the risk of suffocation, the leading cause of accidental death in children under 1 year of age. In addition, putting your baby to sleep on their back, a firm mattress, and maintaining a cool enough sleeping environment is one of the few things you must do to combat Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
- Make sure the changing table is securely attached to the wall and stable enough not to tip over.
- Carefully assess the area around the nursery windows and possible threats. If necessary, you can consider installing window bars to cut off your little explorer’s escape routes. As well as wireless blinds that do not pose a choking hazard.
- Just in case, consider putting a soft, thick rug around the crib to act as fall protection if your child in any way compromises the safety of their bed. That way you will be sure that you managed to successfully childproof your home after moving.
Kitchen
Although you should secure your home after moving in any case, it is extremely important to keep the kitchen safe for children, as everything in this room can get really dangerous. Ironically, the tastiest room in your home can bring out the most bitter tears. So make sure you take a careful look around the kitchen and properly protect it for kids.
- If you store various cleaning products in a cabinet under the sink, as most people do, then your main concern is to make this dangerous storage space safe so that your child can keep you company while you cook. You can either install a secure latch on the cabinet doors or move the chemicals to a higher level.
- Remember to put the protective knob covers on the stove when not in use so that they cannot be turned on accidentally. In addition, use the backplates so that the baby cannot reach the hot pans and turn them over.
Bathroom
Together with suffocation, accidental drowning increases the number of child injury-related deaths, so you must be extremely careful when bathing your baby. The bathroom should be as safe as possible, and you should know in advance what can go wrong there.
- The bathtub is probably the most dangerous place in your entire home. Never leave your baby unattended in the bathtub, even for a moment. Simply because the moment may be too long. If you have to leave the bathroom in an emergency, be sure to bring your baby with you.
- Enhance the overall safety of your entire bathroom by using anti-slippery mats on the floor and inside the tub. Also, when taking your baby out of the bath, use a towel for a better grip.
- The water temperature should be about 100˚ F to avoid scalding.
- If you store medications in the bathroom, make sure the first aid kit is out of your child’s reach.
Living room
Our home child protection checklist would be incomplete without including the living room, where most of the dangers to your child often hide. If at least one potentially dangerous object remains in the room, your little detective will definitely find it.
- The obvious enemy in your living room is the TV, waiting ominously to be accidentally flipped onto your defenseless child. Make sure the TV is securely mounted to the wall or placed securely on stable and sturdy furniture.
- Every household has at least a few remote controls and these are usually in the living room. And, dangerous enough, each remote control is powered by button batteries, which can be extremely dangerous if accidentally swallowed. Therefore, always keep the controls out of the reach of children or secure the battery compartments.
- Examine your bookcases to make sure they cannot be knocked over. Your heaviest books should always be at the bottom of the bookcase to minimize the risk of injury.
Without a doubt, the move you just went through has left you with little or no energy to do anything else until you have a well-deserved break to regain your normal strength. Ideally, you could demonstrate your resourcefulness and save energy by contacting professional Fort Lauderdale movers to help you organize and complete your move.
Either way, your child’s needs come first, so be sure to use the last drops of fuel in the tank and do whatever is necessary to childproof your home after moving as soon as you arrive. And by preventing accidents, injury, and tears, you ensure your children the happy, healthy, and safe childhood they deserve.