How to Make Toddler Beds Safe for Babies

Prophylactic & Prevention

Make Baby's Room Safe: Parent Checklist

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​Every home is dissimilar, and no checklist is consummate and appropriate for every household, however use this checklist to help ensure that the bedrooms in your abode are safer for your child.

Changing Table

Although a changing tabular array makes information technology easier to clothes and diaper your baby, falls from such a loftier surface tin can be serious. Don't trust your vigilance alone to forestall falls; you should as well consider the post-obit recommendations.

• Choose a sturdy, stable changing tabular array with a 2-inch (five-cm) guardrail around all four sides.
  

• The top of the irresolute table pad should be concave, so that the center is slightly lower than the sides.
  

• Buckle the safety strap, but don't depend on it alone to go along your child secure. Always keep a manus on your baby. Never exit a kid unattended on a dressing tabular array, even for a moment, fifty-fifty if he is strapped.
  

• Proceed diapering supplies within your reach—but out of your child's reach—so you don't have to get out your baby'south side to go them. Never let him play with a powder container. If he opens and shakes it, he'southward probable to inhale particles of pulverisation, which can hurt his lungs.
  

• If you use dispensable diapers, store them out of your kid'south achieve and embrace them with clothing when he wears them. Children tin suffocate if they tear off pieces of the plastic liner and consume them.
  

Suffocation Prevention

• Do not use baby or talcum powders on the infant. If inhaled, talcum-containing powders can crusade severe lung harm and breathing issues in babies.
  

• Keep the crib free of all small objects (safety pins, modest parts of toys, etc.) that she could swallow.
  

• Never go out plastic numberless or wrappings where your babe can attain them.
  

• Don't accept your babe slumber in your own bed adjacent to you. Proceed her in her crib.
  

• Instead of using loose blankets that your baby could go tangled in, wearing apparel her in appropriate-weight sleepwear (similar a wear blanket or slumber sack).
  

• Don't allow your baby to sleep on her stomach, nor should she sleep on a soft comforter or pillow. Identify her to sleep but on her back.
  

Necklaces and Cords

• Don't let strings or cords dangle in or anywhere near the crib.
  

• Don't attach pacifiers, medallions, or other objects to the crib or body with a string.
  

• Don't place a cord or necklace effectually the baby'due south cervix.
  

• Don't use clothing with drawstrings.
  

Cribs

Your baby usually volition be unattended when in his or her crib, so this should be a totally safe environment. Falls are the almost common injury associated with cribs, even though they are the easiest to prevent. Children are almost likely to fall out of the crib when the mattress is raised also high for their height, or not lowered properly as they grow.

Apply a crib manufactured after June 2011, when the electric current prophylactic standards banning the industry or sale of drib-side rail cribs became effective. There is a skilful take chances that an older crib no longer meets all the current safe standards, particularly if it has a drop side.

No matter what the age of your crib, audit it carefully for the following features:

• Slats should be no more than two ³/₈ inches (6 cm) apart and then a child'south head cannot get trapped betwixt them. Widely spaced slats can permit an infant's legs and body to fall through but will trap the infant's caput, which tin outcome in decease.
  

• At that place should be no decorative cutting-outs in the headboard or footboard, as your child'southward head or limbs could become trapped in them.
  

• If the crib has corner posts, they should exist flush with the terminate panels, or they should be very, very tall (such as posts on a canopy bed). Clothing and ribbons tin grab on alpine corner posts and strangle an infant.
  

• All screws, bolts, basics, plastic parts, and other hardware should be present and original equipment. Never substitute original parts with something from a hardware shop; replacement parts must be obtained from the manufacturer. They must be tightly in place to prevent the crib from coming autonomously; a kid'south activity tin cause the crib to collapse, trapping and suffocating her.
  

• Before each assembly and weekly thereafter, inspect the crib for impairment to hardware, loose joints, missing parts, or precipitous edges. Do non use a crib if any parts are missing or broken.
  

Y'all tin prevent other crib hazards past observing the following guidelines:

• The mattress should be the same size as the crib and then in that location are no gaps to trap arms, body, or legs. If you tin insert more than two fingers between the mattress and the sides or ends of the crib, the crib and mattress combination should non be used.
  

• If you purchase a new mattress, remove and destroy all plastic wrapping material that comes with information technology, because it can suffocate a child.
  

• Before your baby can sit, lower the mattress of the crib to the level where he cannot fall out either by leaning against the side or by pulling himself over information technology. Set the mattress at its lowest position earlier your child learns to stand up. The most common falls occur when a infant tries to climb out, so move your child to another bed when he is 35 inches (89 cm) tall, or when the superlative of the side rail is less than iii-quarters of his top (approximately nipple level).
  

• Periodically cheque the crib to be sure there are no rough edges or abrupt points on the metal parts, and no splinters or cracks in the wood.
  

• Do not employ bumper pads in cribs. There is no testify that they prevent injuries, and there is a possible run a risk of suffocation, strangulation, or entrapment. Infant deaths in cribs accept been associated with bumper pads. In addition, toddlers can use a bumper guard to help them climb and fall out.
  

• Pillows, quilts, comforters, sheepskins, blimp animals, and other soft products should not be placed in a crib. Babies take suffocated on such items in the crib.
  

• If you hang a mobile over your child's crib, exist sure it is deeply attached to the side rail, wall or ceiling. Hang information technology high enough so your baby cannot attain it to pull it down. Be sure to remove information technology when he is able to get up on his hands and knees, or is 5 months former, whichever comes starting time.
  

• Crib gyms are not recommended, as infants and toddlers may hurt themselves falling forward onto the gym or pulling the gym down on top of their trunk.
  

• To prevent the most serious of falls and to keep children from getting caught in cords from hanging window blinds or draperies and strangling, don't place a crib—or any other kid's bed—near a window. The Consumer Product Safe Committee recommends using cordless window coverings if possible.
  

Other Chamber Items

• Keep dark-lights away from drapes or bedding where they could commencement a fire. Buy only absurd night-lights that practice not get hot.
  

• Install smoke alarms exterior every bedroom (or any area where someone sleeps), in furnace areas, and on every level of your home, including the basement. Purchase alarms with long-life lithium batteries. Standard batteries should be changed every year. Test alarms every month to make certain they are working properly.
  

• Install CO detectors on each flooring of your domicile. CO is a toxic gas that has no gustation, no color, and no scent. It comes from appliances or heaters that burn gas, oil, forest, propane, or kerosene.
  

• Make certain window guards are secured to preclude a child from falling out the window.
  

• The best toy breast is a box or basket without a lid. Even so, if it has a lid, make certain it has safe hinges that hold the lid open and practise not pinch. The breast should also have air holes just in example your child gets trapped inside.
  

• Utilize a absurd-mist humidifier or vaporizer to avoid burns. Make clean it according to manufacturer instructions to avoid leaner and mold growth.
  

Boosted Data:

• Prophylactic for Your Child: Birth to 6 Months

• Safety for Your Child: 6 to 12 Months

• Safety for Your Kid: one to 2 Years

• How to Keep Your Sleeping Baby Condom: AAP Policy Explained

• Home Prophylactic: Hither's How
  

• Assistance Your Infant Sleep Safely So Yous Can Sleep Soundly
  

Article Body

Final Updated

8/14/2020

Source

Adapted from Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5, 6th Edition (Copyright © 2015 American Academy of Pediatrics)

The information contained on this Web site should non be used as a substitute for the medical intendance and advice of your pediatrician. There may exist variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

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Source: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/at-home/Pages/Make-Babys-Room-Safe.aspx

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