Make Safety 1st Once You Bring the Little One Home

Well if you haven’t heard, September is Child Safety Month. What? You thought that was every month!? Well if you have children it is. Child safety means different things to different parents. Primarily dependent upon what stage of the game their children are in. I think for many parents the time in their lives when there’s the most concern is when the babies aren’t old enough to protect themselves.

This is why I thought it’d be appropriate to share this post with you. My wife and I have two children, Olivia, 29 months and Jake, 13 months. O isn’t putting too many things in her mouth anymore but she’s still exploring many things with her hands. She’s pretty good at climbing and opening lots of things! Jake is cruising (walking any day now) and LOVES putting things in his mouth. You might think our house is like Fort Knox, right? Well, it’s not quite but it’s close.

We have all the essentials like locks on the cabinets and in the electric outlets. However, we’ve added stuff I never even knew they made! I think the best thing we’ve added is the Safety 1st locks for the toilets! If you haven’t seen these, the idea is to prevent the child from opening up the toilet lid. There’s a sliding lock to prevent them from doing this. I love having company over (especially those with older or no kids) and waiting to hear how long it is before they come out of the bathroom with a bewildered look on their face. “Um, how do you open the toilet seat”?  My standard response is, “Oh, you’ll need to deposit $.50 cents in the side there. Another cool lock is the one that covers the Washing Machine door. I’ve heard countless stories of babies getting in the Washing Machine with their older sibling turning it on. I don’t need to tell you what happens next. Besides being a literal life saver these are great for us Dad’s too. Yeah, I’ve convinced my wife there’s no human way for me to open it so that worked to my advantage. I haven’t quite figured out a way to add a lock to the sink so I wouldn’t have to do dishes but we’ll work on that.

I think for many new parents they don’t realize how quickly something that seems so innocent can turn into a nightmare. Babies are so inquisitive and want to investigate anything in front of them. We’re so used to common household products that we don’t even realize it’s actually something that can kill you. We wrap up our little bundles of joy and walk them out of the hospital making sure the slightest bit of trouble is far from baby. Yet when we get home it’s open house on everything and anything.

September is almost over but that doesn’t mean our mission to keep our children safe has to be. If you have little one’s at the house take two minutes check out the Safety 1st Childproof Center. Don’t forget either that safety needs extend beyond the home since baby goes out too! Then spend a few dollars on what could very well save the life of that little baby; you so proudly protected the day you brought them home.

Featured image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theogeo/5140029702/

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