5 ways to help make your home safer for kids

TORONTO – Two toddlers wandered away from their family homes this week in Toronto, causing parents around the city to wonder how they can make their homes safer for their kids.

Kenn Macfie has made it his life’s work to try and save the lives of young children by helping parents babyproof their homes.

The founder of Bullseye Child Safety is the proud father of a five-year-old and uses his house as an example to others.

“A toddler will watch everything that you do but they can’t do everything that you do,” he said.

Here’s a list of five things that can be done to try and keep kids safe from harm inside:

1. Use door locks out of reach from children

“It’s very easy for a child to get outside and the best way to stop that is to actually have a lock where they can’t reach it,” Macfie said.

That means placing a lock higher on the door frame. There are products available that are different from traditional bolt locks and separate from the levers or knobs used to open and closed doors. Chain locks are probably the most common but a guardian lock doesn’t allow the door to open at all.

2. Place baby gates strategically

Blocking access to and from stairs are the main priorities for most parents to prevent children from falling. It’s generally recommended that they be hard-mounted to walls so they can’t be knocked over. Pressure-mounted gates can be used to block access to certain rooms where there may be dangers. They can also be easily re-located if needed.

3. Fasten cabinets and drawers

Putting hooks on the inside of doors throughout the home is one of the easiest ways to keep children from going where they’re not supposed to be.

“One of the places that toddlers find interesting is to get underneath the cupboards where there’s a lot of problematic items,” Macfie said.

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Some products allow parents to just reach in with a finger and lift the hook. Others use a magnet to unlock a latch from the outside.

4. Secure washer and dryer

The laundry room is usually in an area of the home that is often tucked away but rarely locked. That offers children easy access to a place where they can hide and potentially find themselves at risk. The washer and dryer are particularly dangerous if there is more than one child in the house. Locks can be placed on the appliances so young kids can’t crawl inside before a machine turns on.

5. Mount televisions and attach furniture to walls

Televisions have become much larger and lighter with smaller bases so the chances of them falling are greater.

“The easiest thing to do is just to put a bracket on the wall that makes it virtually impossible for anything to happen to it,” Macfie said.

Putting bolts behind a large piece of furniture could keep it from toppling over if a child chose to climb up and inside.