Is Your New Home Ready for Your New Baby?

You and your spouse are expecting a baby and you just purchased a new home, one big enough for a growing family. Furnishing a new house is exciting, but keep in mind that you are entering new territory. Having a baby is a life-changing event, and making sure your new home is ready for your bundle of joy is a serious undertaking.

You may be thinking that you have a few months to worry about babyproofing but believe us, once the baby comes, you will be too tired and overwhelmed to tackle this project. Taking care of a newborn is a 24-hour-a-day job, a fact acknowledged by every parent we know. So, now is the perfect time to get started!

Our homes are our source of comfort, but safety hazards lurk everywhere. Children can get into dangerous situations that new parents cannot even begin to imagine. They explore, they climb, they pull on things; it’s all part of the learning process. The trick is to make learning about their environment safe for infants, toddlers, and school-aged children by moving temptations and risky items out of the way, installing locks where required, and never taking your eyes off your child around water and other potential perils.

We all know that we should keep small items away from babies and young children to prevent choking, but have you thought about the dangers posed by bigger objects? This article on Childproofing the Home shares insights and infographics such as what hurts kids the most in the home. Have you considered the need to keep furniture from falling on children? This may seem far-fetched, but it does happen, and more often than we would like to think. A few anchors and screws can keep your little explorer safe.  Check out the infographic below, entitled A Guide to Babyproofing Your New Home, for these and other common-sense babyproofing tips. 

The infographic is a valuable read for first-time parents, as well as a useful refresher for those who may need to brush up on the topic. It provides specific suggestions for each room where the baby or child spends time and is apt to get into trouble. The infographic offers practical safety precautions to take in the baby’s room, living room, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, garage, and even in the great outdoors.

We also included a few tips that, while not strictly “babyproofing” related, are so important that we couldn’t ignore them. We remind parents never to leave children unattended in the bath or swimming pool, to lower the crib mattress as the baby learns to sit up, and to keep cars locked in the garage to prevent children from playing in them and getting locked inside. These are simply too important to ignore in a piece about keeping our precious children safe.

The infographic makes a convenient checklist as you furnish your new home. Keep it handy and refer to it often. Every time you bring a new object into your home or redo a room, consider what you can do to keep the littlest members of your family safe from harm.

A Guide to BabyProofing Your New Home from Goldbar Real Estate Advisors.