Baby Gate Safety

It’s vital to make your home safe as soon as your baby becomes mobile, as it’s natural for babies to want to explore by crawling, touching and putting things in their mouths. Babies don’t understand danger, so once your baby is on the move, the risk of accidents increases dramatically.

Research proves that every year, half a million under-fives end up in hospital as a result of an accident in the home. Therefore, you need to keep a close eye on your baby to avoid such a hazard. Make sure that you:

·Kkeep a close eye on your baby

· Never leave her alone with an older child or pet and, if you do leave her alone for a few moments, put her in a play-pen or cot. If your baby stays with relatives, make sure their home is safe, too.

Moreover you need to take few precautionary measures at home also to make your home safe for the baby to move around.

Precautionary measures around the house

· Medicines (including vitamins and iron supplements), alcohol, cleaning fluids - lock them away in a high cupboard with a child-proof lock. Never decant chemicals into food containers. For instance, chemicals like white spirit if put in lemonade bottles may create confusion about the liquid and anyone including the bay might mistake it for lemonade.

· Cigarettes, matches and ashtrays should be banished from home as soon the baby reaches a considerable age.

· Electrical appliances can be thrown into water or switched on so make sure they are not left lying around.

· Knives, scissors, razors, pens, pencils, sewing and knitting tools, and plastic bags- all these can be dangerous, so keep them locked away always.

· For your windows, fit windows catches and keep chairs on tables away from windows to prevent your baby from climbing out. Tie back blind or curtain cords.

· Floors- polished floors can be slippery and dangerous.

· Buttons, beads, hard sweets, peanuts, coins and small parts on toys are easily swallowed; keep them away away from your baby!

· Fires should always be covered with a fireguard.

· Electrical sockets should be covered with safety covers.

· Stairs- fit stair gates at both the top and bottom to avoid falls.

· Trailing flexes on lamps- these make it easy for your baby to pull a lamp onto her head; get rid of these!

· For tables, fit safety pads over sharp corners.

· Changing mat- babies may push themselves off. Never leave your baby unattended on one.

· Hot drinks- don’t try to drink them while are holding your baby. Place all cups and mugs out of reach.

· Smoke alarm- fit at least one in your home and test it regularly.

Precautionary measures around the kitchen

· Saucepans- put them on the back burner and turn the handles away from the edge of the stove. Fit a stove guard if possible.

· Washing machines and tumble dryer- make sure your baby cannot climb in.

· Kettle- models with a coiled flex which cannot hang over the counter and be grabbed are safest.

· Tablecloths- Babies can easily pull them along with the table contents on top of herself. Therefore you should avoid their use.

· Iron and ironing board should be kept well away from the baby.

In the Bathroom

· Bath- put cold water in before hot to avoid scalding. Never leave your baby alone in the bath and empty it as soon as you are done with bathing the baby.

· Cosmetics like nail varnish remover, perfume can be poisonous so you should lock them up.

In the Garden

· Pools, ponds, buckets, paddling pools should be emptied or covered up.

· Garden chemicals and tools must be kept in a locked shed or garage.

· Plants- some are poisonous. If you’ve got any suspect species in your garden; pull them up.

With these baby proofing techniques, you can ensure maximum safety for your baby. These will definitely lessen your worries when your baby is moving around the house.

When my husband and I moved into our new house that we had just built, we didn’t think about what problem we were going to soon come across with our son just learning how to walk and crawl. We were able to install child safety gates at the bottom and top of the staircase but we didn’t know how to block our son from getting out of the family room into the kitchen and away from the dog room. I searched everywhere and came across the Summer Infant 07160 Super Wide Custom Fit Gate. This child safety gate was the answer to our problem.

Our family room has two extremely wide openings. No standard child safety gate would be long enough to fit the openings. One of the openings is 13 feet long and the other is 9 feet long. I needed to buy two of these safety gates. I used one and half for the wide opening and half for the other opening. This worked great. I felt such relief once we installed the gates and my son was safely playing in the family room. I didn’t have to worry about him wandering into the kitchen and getting hurt.

Installation of the gates is another story, not so easy. You need to find a stud in the wall when installing the gates. My husband needed to use concrete dowels and screws (not the ones that come included). If he just used those, my son would have been able to push the gate right out of the wall. However, even after installing the gates with the concrete screws, my 115 pound dog walked right into the gate and almost ripped it right out of the wall. Needless to say, we did major damage to our brand new walls.

After almost two years of having the gates up, I was jumping for joy when my son was old enough to be careful in the kitchen and near the dog room. The reason I was happy to take the gates down was that they were really hard to operate. Opening and closing them was not easy. Actually, one gate was easier to operate than the other. I think it had something to do with the way the gates were installed. They need a certain amount of “play” and if you don’t install them correctly, the lock on the actual door of the gate won’t work properly.

I did like the color of the gates though. They are a tannish brown color and blending in nicely with my family room furniture. They have a mesh material so if your child puts his/her face up against the gate, (which they all do at one time), you don’t have to worry about them suffocating.

Another thing I did not like about the gates was the foot stands they rested in. I always knocked into them and my son would try to take them out and play with them. They worked well in keeping the gate in place, but were in the way at the same time.

I remember paying a lot of money for these gates at Babies R Us. They ran me about $100 per gate. In the end it was worth every penny to ensure my son’s safety. They are now in the garage until I need them again.

In order to repair the damage from the installation we needed to replaster the holes they made in the wall. Then we had to repaint. You can still see the spots where the screws were. I don’t think our brand new walls will really ever be the same. Overall, I do recommend the gates if you need to close in a wide opening. I am just not sure they are the made from the best materials. They could have been a little stronger.