Making Kitchens and Bathrooms Safe for Kids

Spills, chills and thrills! There's never a dull moment with kids in the house. As they grow and explore the world around them, they have uncanny abilities to find, eat and fiddle with the most dangerous things. And your kitchen and bathroom are simply loaded with hazards. Hot things. Poisonous things. Sharp things. Yow!

To help you keep kids safe in your kitchen and bath, we've put together some simple and inexpensive—but effective—steps you can take. These recommendations come from parents, teachers, childcare experts, and, yes, emergency service workers. Adopt the ones that work in your home, and buy yourself some peace of mind.

Ovens and Stoves
Some stoves come with kid-safety features built in, such as oven door locks, hot-surface warning lights and out-of-reach burner knobs. But you'll need to take some additional steps to make your kitchen kid-proof.

When you're opening a hot oven, make sure there are no kids underfoot. Put a latch on the oven door, and if burner controls are reachable from kid height, attach kid-proof stove knob covers. You might also consider buying special heatproof covers for individual burners or for the entire top of your stove or range. These can protect a child—or anyone, for that matter—from being badly burned by a surface that retains heat.

Many experts recommend that your kitchen's cooking area—or even the entire kitchen —be completely off-limits to small children. If possible, create a safety zone outside the kitchen but within view, where your child can play under your supervision while you cook.

Kitchen Sink
To reduce the danger of scalds, keep your water temperature below 120 degrees by turning down your water heater. If you have an instant hot water dispenser, make sure your child can't reach the handle or spout. You might consider disconnecting the unit altogether.

If you have an in-sink garbage disposal, keep a drain cover over the opening to discourage curious fingers. Make sure the switch is out of kids' reach.

Do you have a freestanding storage unit in your kitchen? If so, make sure it can't tip over. Place shims under the front legs to tilt the unit flush against the wall, or attach it to the wall with brackets. Store heavy items on lower shelves, not upper ones.

Keep sharp things like knives, graters, potato peelers and chopsticks in a latched drawer. Plastic produce bags and kitchen wrap should also be safely stored away. Keep trash cans and recycling bins latched—or closed up in a locked cabinet—along with any tin can lids, broken jars and old lightbulbs they hold.

Keep soaps, detergents, bleaches, disinfectants, and other poisons and caustics in a cabinet that's latched securely at all times. It's smart to keep hazardous substances in their original containers, labeled with bright POISON stickers. (In many locales, the grimacing face of Mr. Yuck has replaced the traditional skull-and-crossbones. Get a supply of stickers from your poison control center.) Teach your child that the sticker means "Leave this stuff alone!" You might want to look for nontoxic alternatives to the cleansers, drain cleaners and spot removers you've been using.

Do you have sharp-edged appliances or countertops that kids might hit their heads on? If so, buy a bunch of corner guards—soft, blunt-edged plastic corner protectors—to cushion these spots.

Replace any electrical cords that are frayed, worn or cracked. Excess cord can trip both kids and adults, and it can even be a choking hazard. Use cord shorteners to reduce the danger and the mess; these work well with phone as well as electrical cord.

Make sure your kitchen receptacles have GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) protection, which can take the form of a single GFCI receptacle in the kitchen or a GFCI circuit breaker at the main service panel. GFCI protection is a code requirement in kitchens and bathrooms, but many older homes lack this circuitry, which is designed to shut off power immediately when any imbalance in electrical flow is detected. GFCIs are affordable, simple to install, and absolutely essential for safety in any kitchen or bathroom.

General Kitchen Safety
Common kitchen accidents may involve cuts, burns, electrical shock, choking or poisoning. Keep the phone numbers of emergency services near your kitchen phone. Better yet, put them on your phone—many fire departments, hospitals and poison control centers give out free emergency information stickers. Make sure the numbers are visible to children as well as adults. Explain the numbers to kids who are old enough, and discuss the importance of getting help when—and only when—there is an emergency. Keep a first-aid kit in the kitchen. You can buy one ready-packed, or assemble one yourself by following Red Cross guidelines. And take a course in child CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and emergency first aid. If an accident happens, your quick response can make all the difference in the world.

Tub and Shower
Rule Number One: Never—ever—leave a child under five unsupervised in the tub, not even for a minute, not even if the phone or doorbell is ringing. When you fill the tub, keep the baby out of the bathroom, and keep the bathroom door closed. A child can drown in less than a minute, in less than an inch of water.

Help to prevent slips and falls by putting nonskid adhesive strips or appliqués on tub and shower floors. A nonskid mat will also work. When you bathe a baby, use a whole-body foam sponge as a cushion; it will also help keep the child from slipping. For added safety when getting into or out of the water, install a grab bar on the wall over the tub. Outside the tub, use a rug with rubber or vinyl backing that prevents it from slipping.

To guard against accidental scalds from too-hot water, lower your hot water heater's temperature to 120 degrees. Always test bathwater temperature with your hand before you place a child in the tub. You may also want to get a stick-on water temperature indicator especially designed for kids' baths.

Cushion your tub fixtures with covers for the faucet handles and spout. Made of soft or inflatable plastic, these can prevent nasty bumps and bruises.

Keep bath toys in a mesh bath toy bag attached to the tub or shower wall with suction cups. The toys will stay cleaner and they'll be less likely to get underfoot.

Toilet
It may be a simple loo to you, but to your child it's a fascinating whirlpool of delight. Believe it or not, toddlers are top-heavy enough to fall headfirst into a toilet and drown. Guard against this risk. Keep the toilet seat and lid down at all times and fastened shut with clamps, latches or Velcro® locks.

Medications
Cosmetics, vitamins, aspirin and other medications can be deadly poisons to small children. Lock such things—even children's vitamins—away and out of reach. A childproof medicine cabinet latch is a good idea. Attach Mr. Yuck stickers, or another warning sign that kids can easily recognize, to containers of risky stuff like rubbing alcohol that don't normally come with childproof lids.

Keep a vial of syrup of ipecac handy to induce vomiting in case of certain types of poisoning, but don't give it to your child unless you're specifically advised to do so by a physician or the poison control center.

General Bathroom Safety
The average bathroom is a cornucopia of sharp, pointy gewgaws—razors and razor blades, tweezers, scissors, cuticle sticks— the kinds of things that hold a strange and potentially perilous fascination for youngsters. Keep all such items out of sight and out of reach, in a locked cabinet. You'll be glad you did. And if your bathroom door can be locked from the inside, replace the latchset with a nonlocking model.

Lev Liberman is a Portland, Oregon–based Web consultant and daddy of two. Having child-proofed two houses, he's on a first-name basis with Mr. Yuck.