6 Security Tips for New Parents

As your fam­i­ly grows, so does the need to make your home secure. As a par­ent, you are tasked with pro­tect­ing your home and your fam­i­ly. You want your chil­dren to have a great start in life, with the free­dom to explore the world with­in the con­fines of your home. Since you can­not always keep your eyes on them, it is impor­tant to imple­ment secu­ri­ty strate­gies that will keep your kids safe in your absence, and alert you when there is loom­ing dan­ger.

Imple­ment­ing these strate­gies will give peace of mind to new par­ents:

1. Use a baby mon­i­tor: an audio/video baby mon­i­tor allows you to keep your eyes and ears in your baby’s room while you car­ry out oth­er tasks in oth­er rooms inside your house, or even out­side – depend­ing on the range.

2. Install a home secu­ri­ty alarm sys­tem offer­ing motion detec­tion and video sur­veil­lance: depend­ing on the pack­age you install, you can ben­e­fit from mul­ti­ple fea­tures, includ­ing fire and smoke detec­tion, motion detec­tion, and video sur­veil­lance. Such a sys­tem will let you know when there is a fire, or when there is an intrud­er in your home or any oth­er threat that may harm your fam­i­ly.

3. Cov­er elec­tric sock­ets with guards: as your baby grows and begins to roam your home, it will be hard to con­tain his/her curios­i­ty. Elec­tri­cal sock­ets are par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous because they are posi­tioned very close to the ground. Cov­er all sock­ets with guards to pre­vent your baby from spit­ting, throw­ing water, or insert­ing objects that may get them elec­tro­cut­ed.

4. Install safe­ty gates: safe­ty gates can be used to restrict move­ment to cer­tain areas of the home, like the kitchen, stairs, toi­let, or oth­er dan­ger­ous places where they may get injured.

5. Child­proof all cab­i­nets: some cab­i­nets, espe­cial­ly the ones below counter lev­el, often con­tain dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals and deter­gents that may cause injury. To pre­vent injuries, con­sid­er child­proof­ing all doors and cab­i­nets in your home so the baby can’t open them when left unmon­i­tored.

6. Install win­dow and door locks and guards: your new­born will soon be able to grasp small things, and will know how to open a door or win­dow, which could get them injured if they place a hand or foot in the wrong place, or man­age to climb out a win­dow and fall. A baby may also lean on an open door for sup­port and fall in the process. To avoid such, con­sid­er plac­ing extra locks and guards on all doors and win­dows.

Last­ly, con­sid­er clear­ing any clut­ter, includ­ing toys, books, and clothes that may be lying around. Also, hide any wires on elec­tron­ics and go wire­less when­ev­er pos­si­ble.