How to childproof your bathroom

When you have your first child there are many tasks you don’t realise you need to do. Having a child is life-changing in more than one way. Childproofing your home is an essential task you need to undertake and can be a time-consuming part of parenthood. To help new parents out here are some of the main safety risks you should look out for in your bathroom and how to avoid them.

Clean Regularly To Prevent Nasty Mould and Mildew

Although this is just a tip and something you should be doing regularly already even if you don’t have children, it is especially important if there are young children in your home.

Toddlers and young children go through life at a lower vantage point than us, so it is important to get down on your hands and knees to scrub even the most difficult of areas in your bathroom where mould and mildew can develop.

Another important, often forgotten place to clean is the inside of bath toys – something that has recently been highlighted with the controversy over the popular Sophie the Giraffe toy. As younger children are often putting items in their mouths this is even more important.

Put Away All Potentially Dangerous Objects

Many dangerous items can cause harm in the bathroom. Cleaning products,  sharp objects such as grooming scissors and razor blades and cosmetics. Young children learn about the world by putting things in their mouths, so make sure that they are not learning about bleach, razors or shampoo! By keeping them in a bathroom cabinet or on a high-level window ledge out of reach you can rest easy. If you have bathroom furniture or a bathroom vanity unit, you may wish to install a door locking mechanism similar to your kitchen cupboards and other cupboards throughout your home.

Keep Your Toilet Lid Shut

Toilets not only pose a hygiene risk if not kept clean but leaving the toilet seat up could potentially cause a fatal accident for young children. Incidents have seen toddlers could pull themselves up onto a toilet pan, tip forwards and end up head first in the toilet bowl and unable to get out. Shockingly, children can drown in as little as an inch of water, so you must keep your toilet seat down when not in use and use a childproofing safety clip to secure the seat in place.

Ladies, now you have a good reason to shout at the men in your life for leaving the toilet seat up!

Slippy Surfaces

This is also a general safety issue as well as being important for childproofing! Make sure that your bathroom floor isn’t slippy by laying down non-slip mats and cleaning up any water spillages from over the bath while bathing children before lifting them out the bath to avoid injury to yourself and your child.

Unplug all electric devices

Our last tip may go without saying – water and electricity do not mix! Even though many bathroom electrical appliances are designed for the bathroom environment, it is still good practice to make sure to unplug all electric items such as toothbrushes, shavers and hairdryers after use and use socket covers to prevent little fingers from getting in there.

There are many more safety precautions you can take when childproofing your home, and we advise you to read a variety of guides to make sure you have all bases covered!