Learn how to keep your baby safe while they play!
Babies are incredibly inquisitive, and they grow up outrageously quickly. Within your baby’s first year, they’ll be crawling and walking all over the place. Not to mention all the games they play to keep themselves entertained.
The good thing about this is that babies learn through play, so your child will constantly be developing. You do have one significant concern, and it’s all about safety. You can’t let a child wander around in the house without any safety measures in place. They’re incredibly curious, meaning they can easily put themselves in harm’s way. Not to mention the fact that they won’t be experts at walking just yet, so there’s the danger of falling as well.
You don’t want to restrict your child too much or be overly protective of them. If you do, they can miss out on the freedom to explore and learn. Instead, you need to follow a few simple ideas to keep your baby safe while they play and grow…
For more on this topic, check out the full Baby’s First Year collection
Get a protective mat for the floor
Regular flooring is pretty dangerous for a small child. Even if your child falls over on a piece of carpet, it’s going to hurt. Their bones are softer than ours, and they feel pain a lot more. So, you have to be extra careful that your child is protected against falls. Instead of wrapping them up in cotton wool, you should get a protective mat for the floor. There are loads of different baby mats out there that offers some added cushioning to protect their brittle. The best baby play mat should also be non-toxic, meaning it doesn’t contain harmful chemicals that can be inhaled by your child. Unfortunately, a lot of mats are made with chemicals like this, so be on the lookout.
Now, you can let your baby waddle around as they please, so long as they stay on the mat. If they fall, it won’t hurt them anywhere near as much – or not at all.
Restrict baby’s play areas
When you have a play mat, your only problem is ensuring your baby doesn’t wander off away from it. This is easily managed by restricting their play areas! Effectively, you want to section off an area of the room for them to play in. Give them enough room to walk around and be inquisitive, but ensure that don’t stray from their protective flooring. The easiest way to do this is by building a playpen that acts as a fence for your child. By doing this, you also give yourself a bit of respite from looking over them the whole time. If you’re busy making dinner or trying to do something else, you can feel confident that your child is safe on their protective mat in the playpen. They won’t be able to walk or crawl to any potentially dangerous areas!
You can buy a playpen, but I prefer to make one as it lets you be a bit more creative. You can also make it bigger than most playpens for sale, giving your child more freedom.
Seal off dangerous rooms
Okay, so, what if your child isn’t necessarily playing, but they’re just crawling or walking around? This can happen if they’re following you and trying to get your attention, or they may have woken up before you and found their way out of their room. There’s even the slight chance they climbed out of your playpen, but that’s rare! Either way, they’re at risk of finding themselves in dangerous situations. Thankfully, the solution to this is similar to the previous one; you restrict where they can go.
No, this doesn’t mean you create a permanent playpen to keep around your child at all times. Sometimes, you probably wish you could, but there’s an easier way. All you have to do is seal off the dangerous rooms and areas with childproof gates. This means they can’t walk into the kitchen or go up and down the stairs – or even enter the bathroom. It might be worth having gates on almost every door just to be safe!
Store hazardous things at high levels
Next, consider all the things your baby could pick up to play with. They will grab just about anything and everything they see. If it’s in front of them, they’ll have it in their hands and will be playing with it. Most of the time this isn’t a problem as they pick up toys or harmless items. It only becomes problematic if they grab things that could cause harm – like a set of keys, cutlery, etc.
Here, you have to keep all of these things away from your child at all costs. It sounds hard, but there’s an effortless way to do it; keep them up high. A disadvantage of being a baby is that you’re tiny and can’t reach things. So, if you store hazardous things at high levels, your child will never be able to reach them. Thus, you don’t have to worry about them hurting themselves – it’s a simple way to keep your baby safe!
Play with your baby
Last but not least, play with your baby! I love this idea as it means you can keep an eye on them while also bonding at the same time. It’s easy to let your child play while you go off and do something else. If you have things to do, that’s fine! Still, I think it makes sense to play with your baby at every opportunity. It’s a great way to grow your bond and also see how well they’re developing. Plus, as mentioned, it’s the best way to ensure that you can keep your baby safe.
There’s actually a really good video full of ideas to entertain and play with your baby. I’ve linked it above, and it is mainly suitable for babies aged 6 months and up.
Babies need to play to learn new things and develop key skills. But, you can’t let them have free reign of your house or they will get hurt. Put their safety as the number one priority by trying out all of the ideas listed above.
For more on this topic, check out the full Baby’s First Year collection
