The leading cause of injuries among children five years of age and younger is falling, with approximately fifteen thousand kids under the age of eleven falling from windows each year. On average, fifteen to twenty of those falls are fatal. According to emergency medicine specialists, kids that live in urban areas are at an especially high risk for window falls.

These tips can help you prevent window falls in your home, so you can keep the little ones in your life safe from harm.

Keep Furniture Away from Windows

Placing cribs, beds and dressers near a window provides curious little explorers with access to sills that might ordinarily be out of reach. While your design scheme might depend upon a specific placement of furniture, it’s still essential that you keep anything kids can climb on or around away from the windows in their rooms. Even the most docile kids will find a reason to scale the furniture the moment an adult’s back is turned, and the last thing you want is for them to end up near a window when they do.

Install Window Safety Locks

Windows should be fitted with child safety window locks that allow windows to be opened but only to a certain level so that children cannot slip underneath.  These are so easy to buy and fit but if you need a specialist email us at childproofyourhome@childalert.co.uk

There is a Difference Between Window Locks and Security Bars

While security bars and window locks are not the same thing nor do they serve the same purpose, they’re commonly confused. The placement of security bars designed to protect your home against intruders is wide enough to allow a small child to slip through, and the design of window locks is not intended to protect against intruders. It’s important to understand the difference between the two, both to keep your children safe from falls and to guard your home.

Always supervised young children

While it’s important to always keep a close eye on children in your care, it’s especially important when they’re in rooms above ground level and are capable of opening a window. Make sure that you never leave a child in a room unattended when a window is open, and that all windows are locked and carefully secured to prevent little fingers from opening them.

Also read:

Childalert Daily Safety tips

Childalert Everyday children are admitted to hospital

Take the Childalert Safety in the Home Quiz 

Parents may be putting their children’s health at risk by not providing them with the correct footwear.

While we all know wearing ill-fitting shoes can be uncomfortable on a day-to-day basis, causing blisters, ingrown toe nails and sores on children’s feet, there are even more serious side effects to simply wearing a badly fitting shoe. Over time, foot deformities can develop, along with knee and even posture problems.

Feet are designed to take body weight and give mobility essential to quality of life.  Whilst vast amounts of money is spent on educating people to look after themselves nutritionally and physically, little effort is made to educate them on the importance of foot-health, and their child’s.

Children’s feet aren’t fully-formed until they reach their late teens; their bones are still changing and developing, therefore it is a crucial time to nurture the growth process.

According to children’s clothing specialist, Vertbaudet, who are working hard to raise awareness of this issue, children’s shoes need to be designed to support the arches and back of the feet, they should have sturdy soles and be made from robust materials for even more support.

Many mothers find it difficult to choose the right shoes for their children, since not only the size but also the shape of the foot needs to be taken into account. It is vital to ensure shoes are fitted by a trained professional to safeguard against ill fitting shoes that can cause long lasting damage to a child’s feet. The children’s clothing specialist works with an in-house Podiatrist and shoe designer, to ensure every detail of comfort and support is taken into consideration.

“Children’s shoes need to have a good counter that is rigid enough to support the rear of the child’s foot. This will give the child vertical and dynamic balance. And the soles, which should offer an integrated arch system, also reinforce this balance and increase both the static and dynamic stepping of the child.” Philippe Pelligand, Vertbaudet Podiatrist

Choosing the correct footwear for your child really is a priority for mother and baby, and for the child’s future development.

An insightful video full of tips and information can be found at www.vertbaudet.co.uk/page/shoes-video.htm

Guest post by Vertbaudet 

In any household, there are numerous appliances which pose safety threats to children, but kettles are often overlooked. Here, we look at some of the safety risks these appliances pose and the preventative measures you can take to protect your children.

Risks

There can be a few risks posed to your child with the standard off-the-shelf kettle. The first of these is that the child can tug on the cord, potentially causing the kettle to fall, running the risk of spilling boiling water onto them. This can lead to severe burns, which is obviously a massive danger.

Another risk is that parts of the kettle can fall off, particularly with plastic kettles. Kettles can be built up of numerous parts, some of which can fall off, especially if the kettle is an old one. These small components can then pose choking hazards to young children.

It may sound obvious, but the outside of a boiling kettle can get very hot. There is always the concern that a child may touch the outside of the kettle, burning themselves in the process.

While none of these risks are completely avoidable, there certain measures that you can take to prevent them:

Cordless kettle

Some kettles nowadays, such as the Delonghi kettle, have a base that plugs into the mains that the kettle sits on to warm up. This means that there isn’t a wire trailing down, meaning that there is nothing for a child to grab hold of, other than the base, which can be pushed right back onto the countertop.

Stainless steel kettle

A stainless steel kettle tends to be made of one solid and continuous piece rather than lots of separate pieces, meaning that it is less likely that something will fall or break off. Although these kettles seem studier, the outside material can get extremely hot when boiling, so it is important that you never leave the kettle unattended when children are present.

Keep children out of way

While this is hard to achieve, it is the safest way to ensure that there are no accidents with the kettle around your children. No kettle will ever be completely safe due to the nature of the appliance, but ensuring your children aren’t left alone with them removes the chance of an accident.

See Childalert articles

childproofing your home 

kitchen safety 

dangers of UK sockets

Navigating the minefield of viruses and spam-filled websites is tricky enough as an adult so it is understandable if your kids aren’t sure how they should avoid online threats. As a parent you should not just allow your child the freedom of the internet but nor should you block every website there is. Somewhere between the two is ideal, and these simple steps will best prepare your children for the online world.

Use parental controls

Most laptops and computers you can get these days come with inbuilt options for parental controls; customise these settings to suit your children. You can block various types of content that your child could potentially stumble upon which means you will have peace of mind letting your children use the computer unattended. You cannot always watch them when they are online and parental controls are perfect for these occasions.

Get a good antivirus/spyware

It is not just what your children might see online that can harm them, but also hidden threats they can be completely unaware of. Anyone at any time can accidentally download a virus or stumble across a website that can steal personal information so you must have software that is on the lookout for these risks. Children as young as 11 have written malicious code in the past, so your kids must be made aware of the risks.

Remind them about sharing information

Chat rooms, fan sites and forums are good places for your children to meet like-minded people but there are always rules they must follow just as in the real world. Remind them not to share their full name, address, phone number or photograph. This is information that can be used for all the wrong reasons in the wrong hands, so teach them to use these websites safely.

Encourage them to keep passwords secret

This is a good habit for adults and children alike and it also stretches to emails that ask for their details or users online. Encourage them to even keep their passwords secret from you; if they don’t tell you they certainly won’t tell a stranger.

Also see Childalerts; 

Zip it Block Flag it – click here 

Tips for online safety – click here

Over a quarter of young people say their parents never talk to them about Online Safety - click here 

A 2 year old boy climbed onto the kitchen table where there was a bag full of shopping and managed to take out an open a bottle of oven cleaner ( which had a child safety cap`!) –  before swallowing the liquid.

The little boy was rushed to hospital with internal injuries and may now need a oesophagus transplant after suffering extreme burns.

“I feel distraught. I know I made a mistake leaving the shopping bags in the kitchen but I still cannot understand how a child aged just two managed to open the bottle.”  The toddlers grandmother commented

Of course, these caps aren’t “child-proof”. If they were completely child-proof, they may be adult-proof too – particularly for people with arthritis or less strength in their hands. They’re “child-resistant”, which means that some toddlers may well be able to open them.  In fact, one in seven children under 51 months may be able to open a cap – and it could still be classified as “child-resistant”.

If parents and carers knew the facts, of course they’d behave differently, and tragedies like last week’s would be avoided. That’s why your help in spreading the word is so vital.

Seeing your child go off to school for the first time is definitely a big milestone in any parent’s life and whilst a very proud moment, for parents and children alike it is often incredibly emotional and stressful.

For parents, the day brings the realisation that our little ones are no longer our little babies anymore. A new phase in their lives has begun as they move towards more independence, which whilst exciting it can also be sad for many mums and dads.

But even harder to deal with is our children’s faces when they realise we’re leaving them in the care of someone else. For children who are naturally shy or worried this can cause plenty of stress until they get used to a new situation. What parent after all finds it hard to walk away from their child as they call after them even though they know it has to be done?

Many children suffer from acute separation anxiety when it comes to starting school and this can manifest itself in many different ways, from not being able to sleep to loss of appetite to even bed wetting.

So are you nervous about your child starting school for the first time? Are you worried about what impact it could have on your child? Are you unsure of how to ease your child through this huge milestone? And if they do suffer from separation anxiety when the big day happens, are you worried that you won’t know how to solve resulting problems such as excessive bed wetting?

If you answered yes to any of the above then you should log onto WebTV’s show with DryNites experts Dr Hilary Jones and child psychologist Emma Kenny.

Watch it live online at 3pm on  http://www.studiotalk.tv/

Also have a read about school anxiety and how to handle it at childalert – click here