A baby’s skin is very sensitive and even hot water and hot drinks can scald badly. Take great care with anything hot.
- Use fireguards designed to protect children. Heaters are safer if fixed to a wall and
used with a heater guard. - Don’t drink hot liquids with a baby on your lap or in your arms, or have a baby on your lap at the table within grasping or knocking distance of anything hot.
- Radiators can burn a baby’s skin. You may need to turn the heating down or use a radiator guard.
- Hot water from the tap can scald. Turn the hot water system down to 54°C/130°F.
- The inside of a freezer can cause an ice burn. Use a freezer lock so your baby or toddler cannot open the door.
- The dangling cord from an iron on an ironing board is very tempting to a crawling baby. Do the ironing when he is safely in bed, or pop him in his highchair with a few toys so he can watch you but cannot reach the iron.
- Swap flexes on kettles and appliances for curly ones that won’t dangle over the edge of a worktop and tempt a crawling baby to pull on them.
- Use a cooker guard. Get into the habit of using the rear burners or plates on the cooker rather than the front ones. Turn pan handles towards the back of the cooker.
- At a temperature which may feel only hot to an adult, an oven door can burn a baby’s skin badly. Fit an oven door guard, which adds an extra insulating layer to the door.
- Always put cold water in the bath first. Adding cold water after hot is potentially unsafe; you could forget to add the cold or an older child could climb in, thinking the bath is ready.
- The bath water should feel warm to your elbow – the traditional way of checking (your hand is too accustomed to hot temperatures). A bath thermometer removes all doubt.
- Wrap a towel around taps to prevent hot water from dripping and to avoid heads being bumped on them.
