| Child Safety Week is run by the Child Accident Prevention Trust to raise awareness of the number of accidents that kill or seriously injure children, and how to prevent them.
If parents spend just 10 minutes or so during child safety week thinking about how they can make their home safer – by fitting a stairgate, making sure that things like hair straighteners and poisonous substances are out of harms reach etc., then it could prevent many nasty accidents.
We hope the Ten Tips below help you.......
 Every day 11 toddlers are rushed into hospital because they’ve swallowed something dangerous. Detergent capsules and concentrated detergents are really convenient but pose new risks to young children. If yours are under the sink, take a couple of minutes to move them to a high cupboard or one with a lock, away from little hands.
Remember some 3-4 year olds can open child ‘proof’ caps in seconds, so keep medicines in a locked or high cupboard too. Don’t forget the painkillers in your handbag too!
Hair straighteners stay hot enough to badly burn a child 8 minutes after being unplugged. So take a moment to lift them off the floor or the door handle and put them where they can’t be reached.
Young children love to climb on furniture to see out of windows - or just to climb! Take the time to fit a window lock so it will only open to 6cm (2.5 inches). Falling downstairs can damage your babies brain as well as their body so make sure you use safety gates on stairs.
Thick, black smoke from a fire can fill your home in minutes and kill your child in seconds. So get a smoke alarm fitted on every level of your home and test it regularly.
At least 1 young child a year dies after getting caught in a blind cord and being strangled. It takes seconds to tie yours back round a hook to keep loops out of reach of climbing children. Move children’s cots, beds and highchairs away from window blinds too.
Babies and toddlers drown silently and in as little as 5 cm (2 inches) of water. Bath seats aren’t safety products as babies can wriggle out of them. So make time to always stay with your young child or baby when they’re in the bath.
In five seconds a toddler’s skin can be burned so badly by hot tap water that they need to go to hospital. So take a second to put the cold water in first and top up with hot, then test the water with your elbow, to reduce the risk of your child being burned.
Toddlers can choke on food that’s too big, even just the size of a grape. Take a minute to cut their food up into small pieces.
6 toddlers are admitted to hospital every day because they’ve been so badly burned. A hot drink can burn a young child even 15 minutes after it has been made, so put your baby down before you pick up yours and don’t pass hot drinks over children’s heads.
June 2010
Visit the Child Safety Week Website . | 
Declutter and De-stress
