If you’re preparing to welcome a new baby into your home, there are many things you’ll need to do. A major aspect of parenthood is creating a safe home environment, so here are six ways to do so.
1. Consider Your Habits
If you smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol regularly, consider these habits when you decide to become a parent. Follow your doctor’s guidance about vitamins, nutrition, and exercise. If you’re expecting your new baby by working with a surrogate mother (since thousands of women apply to be surrogates every year), review your expectations for a healthy pregnancy with the prospective surrogate before signing the surrogacy contract. Along with a healthy body, you’ll need to make several household adjustments to ensure your home will be safe for your coming baby.
2. Prevent Choking Hazards
There has been a recent increase in items that require lithium batteries, so parents must be careful to store the extra lithium batteries out of reach. When you’re feeding a baby or toddler, be sure the pieces of food you offer them aren’t too large. When your baby plays with toys, be sure the toys don’t have buttons or small parts that could fall off and be swallowed. Be careful with your baby’s clothing; babies enjoy putting everything in their mouths, and their clothes could have loose strings, buttons, or other attachments.
3. Store Toxic Substances Safely
Inside your home, you have many things that could be toxic to your child. Keep household cleaners, laundry products, and pesticides in a locked cabinet or garage. To be sure your baby doesn’t swallow medications that aren’t meant for them, keep your pills in baby-proof caps in locked medicine cabinets. Once your child can understand you, even if you’re trying to persuade a reluctant child to take their pills, never refer to medicine as candy.
4. Consider Bath Time
Always test the water in the bathtub before you place your baby in the water. Put your hand or elbow in the water to ensure it isn’t too hot for them. Place some non-skid mats in the tub to prevent the baby from slipping or falling. Most importantly, never leave your baby alone in the bathtub.
5. Pay Attention to Pet Safety
If you’ve already got a pet in the home, consider ways to prepare your pet to interact with your baby safely. If your pet is a dog, you may want to plan to get your dog used to being outdoors with a fence to ensure their safety. Once you install a fence for your dog, you should spend at least two weeks walking with the dog around the flag boundary for 15 minutes.
6. Check for Fire Protection Compliance
If you live in an apartment complex, the management will protect the buildings against fire. According to the NFPA25 Code, functional and visual inspections are required for a building’s fire protection system. These tests and inspections will ensure the system is current and operational. Your complex’s management is responsible for documenting these inspections, and tests are done monthly, quarterly, semiannually, yearly, and at intervals of five and 10 years.
As you wait for your baby to arrive, much of these nine months of waiting may, by necessity, include many of the above safety precautions. But don’t forget to prepare your heart for your new family member. Pregnancy hormones will put your body through changes, and sometimes, it may feel as though your life has been irrevocably disrupted. But, in the end, when your new baby comes home, you’ll find that all of your preparations will have been worth it.
