The Bishan Intercity Real Estate & Housing Committee(BIRHC)

Bishan Real Estate Development & Property Management Resources

Child-Proofing Your Home

Here's a guest post from Bishan's topnotch real estate agent/mom-- Jennifer Loh! 

Kids are as adorable and as lovable as they are careless. Our lives and households will never be the same when we have kids around. The simplest thing can be the biggest hazards in the hands of the little ones. I remember some years ago, I had a distant cousin who died after being run over by some chopped firewood. Who would have thought that the neatly stacked firewood could end up the little child’s life?

The thing is, kids are curious and practically fearless. Their innocence is matched by their ignorance of what can harm them. Since we cannot fully force our kids to grow up and be fully responsible for themselves, securing their safety is totally in our hands. This is particularly important, especially when we move from an old home to a new home-- it gets even harder.

While we cannot always be on guard watching the, 24/7, there are ways to make our homes safer for our children. Here are some tips on how to child-proof a house.

1. Keep the floors soft. You don’t need to put wall-to-wall carpeting in your house. You can keep your ceramic tile/wood floors but you can always add rubber flooring over your current home flooring. They do not need to be glued to the floor and you can always remove them after some years. We have the privilege of living in an exquisite apartment in KLCC, where they have child-friendly floors on playgrounds and other common areas. This will make falls a whole lot less painful and less dangerous for kids who just could not stop themselves from climbing whatever they can climb.

2. Keep the breakables away. Huge vases and china decors could find itself more secure in the store room for a few years. They are not only hazardous to your kids, they are too expensive to lose from being knocked over by a stray basketball from your future baller.

3. Cover your electric sockets. For some reason, sockets look so attractive to kids. Maybe because some of them look like smiling faces? I couldn’t be too sure but they are without a doubt very dangerous. I remember the story of the kid who pushed a metal fork into the socket and, well, it didn’t end well apparently. There are safety caps in your local DIY and hardware stores that you can plug to your open sockets to keep them safely away from the tinkering little fingers in your house.

4. Everything and anything dangerous should be kept away from children. Spare wires, pesticides, acids, sharp objects – moms and dads by all means keep them where your kids cannot reach them. You can hide your acids in the shed and keep it locked and your knives and other cutlery should be kept away in high cabinets.

5. Do not put furniture close to windows. It does not take too many episodes of Tom and Jerry to try jumping off a window and expect to get out of it unscathed. Also, do not stack anything heavy on each other to avoid it falling all over your kids.

Because every home is different, the secret to completely child-proofing your home is to observe your own kids and adapt a child-security method that will work best for your own kids and homes.

Email Jennifer at J.Loh@bishanpropconsult.com. Keep it here at BIRHC for more great tips!