The home is there to, first and foremost, protect the health and safety of your and your family. A safe, warm and dry place to stay is your number one concern. But making sure it stays that way also means making sure that your life doesn’t lead to too much wear and tear. However, where a young family of children is concerned, it can be hard to guarantee that. Here are a few tips to help along the way.
Keep them out of where they don’t belong
You don’t have to enforce draconian measures to keep both home and child safe. Just a few boundaries that keep them out of things that can harm them or, if they get their hands on them, making a massive mess should be enough. Childproofing the home includes keeping them out of any cupboards or rooms where they might cause damage if left to their own devices. In some cases, it might mean gating off a room but it might also be as simple as a child-safe lock on a cupboard or two.
Keep storage out of the way
Simply put, the more stuff that you have lying around the house, the more likely that your kids are going to end up accidentally breaking it. Keeping decorative knick-knacks out of reach is a sensible start but, aside from that, you should make sure you have the storage to keep everything in a safe and secure place, rather than having to leave it lying out. Multipurpose furniture that also acts as storage can be a great choice as it means you don’t have to fill up more space with furniture, as well.
Use suitable materials
If you’re filling your home up with fine expensive carpets and antique vases precariously perched on the edge of tables, then you should really have known better. You should make sure the home is decorated using materials that are suited to your lifestyle. With children that like to play, run around and, indeed, even make the occasional mess, this means you use resilient and long-lasting materials like vinyl flooring and finished wood countertops. Basically, make it more difficult for them to do any damage in the first place.
Don’t give them things to climb
If you have chairs lying around close to things like shelves, then you can expect your kids to go scrambling up them. Even worse is having a bookshelf with plenty of perches for them to climb up. If you’re going to have a bookshelf, then make sure that you have it fastly secured to the wall. Otherwise, not only are they a fall risk, but they can even fall on top of them when they go climbing, which can lead to serious injury. Your best option is to simply clear away anything they might be able to climb.
With a growing family, the occasional incident that results in a little property damage should be expected. However, you can at least give your home a fighting chance with the tips above.
