Top (and Most Effective) Tips To Baby Proof Your Kitchen

In this post, we will look at the best (and easiest) ways of ensuring that your kitchen in baby proof!

The kitchen is the one room in the home that is full of potential hazards and risks, especially when you have little ones around. As the heart of the home, your kitchen is also a space that you’ll find yourself using frequently, with your little ones by your side, so it’s really important to ensure that the area is safe and secure for the both of you.

Baby proofing your kitchen does not require you to completely change the look and style of your kitchen, turning it from a stylish hub of activity, to a super secure space with no character at all. To baby proof your kitchen you simply need to make a few small yet vital changes, have a slight change in your everyday routine and also ensure you’re always on the ball to keep the area safe and secure.

The Dangerous Areas

It’s no surprise that your oven is one of the most dangerous features within your kitchen. Not only are they often extremely hot, but they also have heavy doors and hard edges. When you’re cooking, especially with your child in the room, try to use some durable covers for your hobs, to prevent any fingers getting burnt. Children always have the urge to touch things, especially if they know that they shouldn’t be touching it, so by covering the hobs on your oven you can rest assured that your child is safe from the heat. Similarly, you can look at adding some slow closing hinges to your oven door, as this will prevent the doors from slamming shut and trapping any fingers.

Keep Things Clean

It’s a well-known fact that your kitchen is one of the messiest rooms in the home, or at least it can be if you don’t keep on top of cleaning it. Keeping your kitchen clean is essential to ensure your little ones don’t catch any nasty bugs or eat anything they shouldn’t. It’s surprising just how much dirt and germs can gather all over your kitchen from the cabinets and worktops, to the floor and even the chairs.

Make a habit of cleaning your kitchen, thoroughly, at least once a week, as this will ensure you’re keeping on top of any unwanted dirt that happens to have gathered throughout the room. It’s also really important to keep your floor area and the bottoms of your cabinets clean, as your little one is often at floor level and you don’t want them to find any nasty surprises whilst they crawl around the room.

Secure the Doors

One of the most important things to baby proof in your kitchen are the doors. Kitchens are made up of lots of doors, from the main room doors to the cabinet doors, and it’s really important to ensure that they are safe. Investing in some good quality child looks is the ideal solution to ensure that the doors are securely closed at all times. It doesn’t matter if your child swings from the handles or pulls on the sides, the doors will stay closed until you use the technique needed to open them again.

This will simply prevent your child from trapping their fingers, banging their head and even rummaging through the cupboards and making a mess. The great thing about child locks is that they are suitable for all types of kitchen, so it doesn’t matter if you’ve invested in a stylish cheap kitchen, or you have heavy contemporary doors that slam closed after every use. You should also look at introducing some child locks to the main doors in the room and adding a small baby gate to the door frame. This can really help to keep your baby from entering or leaving the room, as well as stopping any doors from slamming shut!

Baby Proof Your Habits

When you bring a child into your home you instantly need to focus on your habits. You may be the used to sitting and reading a book with a nice glass of wine on the table, or perhaps you sometimes hang a plastic bag on the cupboard handle whilst you’re cleaning, but once a little one is added into the picture these habits become a huge safety hazard. Focus on keeping as many things out of reach as possible, to prevent your child from knocking anything over or breaking anything and hurting themselves.

Similarly, try to keep plastic bags, hot drinks, electric sockets and sharp items well out of reach, to prevent any unwanted accidents and also to keep your home tidier!

Magnet / Via magnet.co.uk