The kitchen is one of the most critical areas in the house. It’s the place where you cook, prepare meals and clean dirty dishes. It’s also known as the heart of the home. However, despite being one of the best areas of the house, it’s also one of the most unsafe places for children.
Keeping your children safe is your duty. That’s why creating a child-friendly kitchen must be a priority.
Check out these 7 proven safe and effective tips below.
Double Check Everything
When cooking, people get busy and tend to forget things. The oven and other cooking appliances that are not turned off are one of the main things that can cause your children to hurt or injure themselves. Children, in their early age, are more curious which can lead to accidents.
Making sure that everything is turned off and out of their reach is the best thing to do especially to those appliances that can cause significant injury. Stoves and water heater are just examples of devices that can put your kid’s life at risk.
Point It the Other Way
When cooking, always make sure that the handle of any cooking appliance is turned opposite to your children’s reach. Accidents like burns can happen when you don’t turn the handle the other way.
Using back burners can be helpful, too. Also, stove knobs that can be reached by your kids should be childproof with stove knob covers.
Classify and Arrange Everything
When you’re done cooking in the kitchen, make sure that everything is well-arranged and stored. Classify and separate harmful substances you have in the kitchen so that children won’t be able to reach them.
Harmful substances like pesticides should be separated and stored in areas that only the adults can reach. Some kids might think that it’s edible and they would try to mix it with their food or even in other people’s food. Instances like these can lead to poisoning.
Keep It Clean
After using the plates, always make sure that the dishes are clean. Don’t leave raw food or foods that might go bad in the sink or even on top of the plates you’ve already used. Leaving foods in the sink or dishes, especially raw ones, can harm the health of your loved ones.
Make it a habit to clean the dishes right away after you use it. Leaving foods in the kitchen sink or plates can cause bacteria to build up. Also, don’t let foods go bad. Spoiled foods can attract flies which carry disease. They can also have a very unpleasant smell.
Be Attentive
The best thing you can do is to be alert all the time. No matter how many times you make your kitchen child-friendly, there will be no assurance that they won’t be hurt. Accidents can still happen. Being with your children, especially in the kitchen, is very important to prevent them from happening.
Always keep an eye on your kids since they can always reach kitchen utensils, such as knives. Also, always place a fire extinguisher near the kitchen because you might not know when you’ll be needing it.
Do It With Them
When doing renovation, try asking your children to help you so that they will know what places are off limits. If you have a baby, try installing a cabinet that they can reach so that they won’t be curious about what’s inside it.
Baby proofing or just making your kitchen safe is not that hard. Creating and designing a kitchen for kids can be fun as well. Try designing your kitchen while your child is around so that you can ask your kid what design he or she wants.
Keep Them Out
If your kids are still babies, the best things you can do is to build safety gates near the kitchen. Keeping them out can help prevent problems from actually happening.
By doing this, you won’t have to worry anymore about your kid wandering around the house since babies are curious when they see something that interests them. Some couples tend to forget their kids when they are so busy sorting things out, that’s why putting up one is a good idea.
Takeaway
Keeping your family safe is not an easy job nor a hard one. Dedication and patience are the only things you need for you to make sure the health of your family will not be at risk.
If you don’t have any idea on how to make your kitchen safe, you can try searching the web for effective ways on how to make your kitchen child-friendly. You can also ask experts so that you’ll know what other things you can do to keep your kids safe.