8 Ideas To Make Your Home More Child-Friendly

Your home should be a safe space for you and your family, which means that if you have young children, you may have to consider a few things that could help reduce the risk of them getting seriously injured. Of course, there is very little we can do as parents to prevent our kids from getting bumps and scrapes unless we choose to let them out of our sight or have any fun. However, that doesn’t mean it’s wise to just let them fend for themselves or not fix things that can be a high risk to them around the home. To help you with this process, we’ve listed eight ideas you can use to turn your home into one that is much safer for your children. This means you can be confident they will be as safe as possible under your roof and won’t cause serious damage to your home either.

Eliminate Sharp Edges
Children, especially younger ones, seem to have very little spatial awareness or the ability to pre-empt an injury. This is why it’s not uncommon for children to spend their time running around in places that really aren’t safe to be doing so. To reduce the risk of them sustaining a serious injury, you can remove any sharp edges from your home that they could run into and cut themselves on. Table corners are a key contender here, and while your child may end up bumping into a hard wooden surface that is rounded, it will only end in a bumped head rather than a cut that could require stitches. In fact, there are quite a few benefits to having round tables instead of tables with corners, so you don’t need to worry that this choice will be a sacrifice in any way, either.

Use Washable Paints
While the prevention of injuries is incredibly important when making your home child-friendly, it’s also important to remember that this is your home too. Finding ways in which you can protect your home from needless damage is essential if you want to keep the place looking nice without having to spend a fortune every time something gets spilt, for example. This is why it’s highly recommended that when you decorate your home, you use paints on your walls that can be cleaned easily. Washable interior paints are a great solution to combat the curious and rogue nature many children develop. Drawings on walls, dirty fingerprints, and spills can be washed off much easier with paint like this.

Prevent Furniture From Tipping
A common danger in the home when there are children around is tipping furniture. Once kids get to an age where their curiosity takes over, and before they’ve managed to learn that their actions have consequences, they can often find themselves in trouble. In this case, that trouble involves the movement or tipping of furniture, which can lead to them getting hurt. There are a number of types of furniture that could tip, which you might not consider, but these can include everything from TV and cabinets to shelves and sofas. This is why it’s important to first choose furniture that perhaps isn’t too tall or that can be safely fastened to the wall. Choosing heavy sofas and chairs can also reduce the risk of chairs tipping backwards if your kids stand up and lean backward, too. Alternatively, you should consider keeping sofas and chairs with their back against the wall so they can’t tip backwards.

Consider Boundaries
If your home has a particularly large outdoor area, or even an outdoor pool, there are a whole heap of other safety considerations for you to keep in mind. You might want to do a quick “handyman near me” online search to find someone skilled enough to create a sturdy and fool-proof fence around your outdoor pool or certain garden areas you don’t wish your children to go in unsupervised. This should include a childproof lock or latch so that they won’t be able to let themselves in, even if they have a key. Pools can be a very dangerous thing for children, even for those that might be good swimmers, so sectioning this off with a sturdy boundary fence is a good idea.

Baby Gates
Similar to boundaries around your garden, you might want to keep certain rooms around your home shut off from your children. There are a number of reasons for this, but the most common tend to be so that you have a space specifically reserved for you so that you can relax or pursue your hobbies without your kids messing anything up or breaking anything valuable, and also because you might store dangerous items in there such as heavy or sharp tools, for example. To separate these rooms from your kids or an entire area of your house from them, you could use baby gates. These can be locked and will only be easy for you and other adults to open.

Install Hard Floors
Similar to how we discussed using washable paints for your walls, it’s worthwhile installing hard floors instead of carpets in certain rooms that might be more at risk of experiencing spillages. Playrooms, dining rooms, and living rooms are key areas to consider, as these are the most common rooms for food and drink to be in. Playrooms will also be subjected to things like paints and other arts and crafts materials. Hardwood floors and vinyl are much easier surfaces for you to clean than carpets will be, and it might even be a case that certain spills could ruin a carpet. Getting some dyes out of fabrics can be impossible, whereas you’ll have a much easier time scrubbing hard surfaces to get stains off of them.

Add Some Extra Storage
One of the most common problems parents will encounter is the potential for clutter to accumulate around the house. This is not a great experience for anyone, and that is why storage should be your top priority. There are many different types of storage options you could make use of in your home. One of the best types of storage for a house with kids is hidden storage. This can be stowed out of the way so that when you have guests over, the place seems free from any clutter. You can hide storage in many places around your home, such as under the bed, inside certain pieces of furniture, under the stairs or even under floorboards where possible.

Make Use Of Surveillance Technology
Plenty of technology available today can help you keep an eye on your home wherever you are. While you won’t necessarily be leaving your children in the house alone at a young age, you can use surveillance cameras to keep an eye on them should they be left alone playing in their playroom or in the garden while you are busy or working. These can also be useful if you are out of the house and have a babysitter looking after them. That way, you can check in and see that everyone is happy and that there are no accidents or problems. Just be sure to inform your babysitter that the cameras are there, as well as where each one is, so that they are comfortable with your system and that it isn’t a breach of their privacy. Indoor and outdoor security cameras are a great way to help you feel more confident when you’re away so that you can be sure your children and home are as safe as possible.