Baby Proofing Your Staircase

Once a baby starts crawling, a child safety gate can help protect them from climbing or falling down stairs, and help keep them in or out of rooms. Babies and toddlers are drawn to stairs as soon as they are mobile so I suggest that most parents tackle baby proofing the staircase as soon as their child shows any signs of crawling. The following tips are designed to help you keep your kids off the stairs and prevent any slipping or falling accidents:

1. Use hardware mounted safety gates. NEVER use pressure mounted gates on a stairway. Babies are very strong and not to be under estimated. They can push through the pressure gate and fall down the stairs with the gate. Always use a safety gate with the JPMA seal.
2. Do not use safety gates with a doorway that has a bottom rail that people trip over.
3. Use acrylic to prevent your child from slipping through the slats on your stairway rails.
4. Use carpet runners if you have wooden stairs. It is too easy for children to slip or parents to fall when their hands are full.
5. Most experts say that an extra tall gate is highly recommended so that the baby is sure not to climb over it.
6. Do not allow clutter to accumulate on the stairs. The innocent pile of laundry you set on the bottom step can easily become a major tripping hazard.
7. Try and stay away from baby walkers. Sometimes, baby walkers can give parents false security that their baby is secured. But these walkers can cause injury when the baby gets too close to the edge of the stairs and falls down.
8. Installing gates is not an easy task so if you or your spouse are not very handy you may want to have your stairway gates professionally installed.

Swimming Pool Safety Tips

With summer in full swing and a heat wave bearing down on most of the nation we here at Safe Start Baby thought it might be a good idea to go over some basic pool safety tips and learn how you can make this a safe summer for all the kids in your life.

The number one priority and most basic rule when building or buying a home with a pool, is that the pool must be entirely enclosed in a locked gate. While pool gates are often viewed as unattractive and expensive, they are your first line of defense in preventing drowning accidents and the single most important safety factor. Pool gates have come a long way since our childhood and there are many attractive and cost effective solutions out there. If you have an existing gate around your pool but are concerned about small children slipping through the posts you can install deck netting.

While a gate around the pool is the first line of defense, there are also other things you can do to prevent your kids from slipping out of the house unnoticed and trying to get to the water. If you have a deck you can install another gate that prevents your children from accessing the yard without your permission. Parents can also install a door alarm that beeps whenever a door to the outside is opened.

Here are a few more tips for keeping your pool safe this summer:

• Never leave children alone in or near the pool, even for a moment.
• Make sure adults watching young children in the pool know CPR and can rescue a child if necessary.
• Surround your pool - on all four sides - with a sturdy five-foot fence.
• Make sure the gates self-close and self-latch at a height children can't reach.
• Keep rescue equipment (a shepherd's hook - a long pole with a hook on the end - and life preserver) and a telephone near the pool.
• Avoid inflatable aids such as "floaties". They are not a substitute for approved life vests and can give children a false sense of security.
• Whenever infants or toddlers are in or around water, an adult should be within arm's length, providing "touch supervision."