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Kids are almost always exploring. Because of their curiosity and very playful nature, children are almost always prone to accidents within the basic premises of the home. However, not too many households expect kids to accidentally get inside bathrooms. In several cases already, children are rushed to the hospital or are subjected to major accidents because parents forgot or willingly neglected ensuring bathroom safety.
If you have kids on your household, it would much advisable if you would rearrange how furniture are fixed on the house. Overall safety of kids should be given particular attention. Even in the bathroom, parents should maker sure that the part of the house would completely be free from potential accidents especially if children would slip in and be curious about bathroom fixtures.
Because the bathroom is almost always wet and slippery, it would truly be helpful if that house part would be kept a safe zone for kids. Being a kid-friendly and safe home would help you attain serenity, security and confidence that your kid or kids would always be safe while inside the home. To be able to make the bathroom hassle free and really safe, or be able to ensure bathroom safety, it would be imperative to take note of the following simplified guidelines:
1. Always make sure the lid of the toilet bowl seat is always down. Through ensuring this, you would find your bathroom safe from any form of kid drowning. Even if toilet bowls have water that are not enough to drown any average adult, kids, especially toddlers are at greater risks. Also consider installing toilet bowl seats so that overall safety would be revealed. Rule number one to bathroom safety: keep toilet seats down especially when there are kids around.
2. Make sure the kid would not ever get to the shower and the bathtub areas alone. That is because according to bathroom safety experts, doing so would take the child's life at risk. First, he might slip and fall because the bathtub is slippery. At the same time, doing so would also pose the risk of drowning especially if there is water in the tub.
3. If there are any garbage cans inside the bathroom, makes sure you do not throw medicines, cleaning supplies, razors and containers of hairsprays at the objects. Otherwise, bathroom safety for kids would be compromised because children may go inside and be curious about the contents of the thrash can. For sure your watchful eye would not allow you to let your children slip out of your sight, but preventive and safety measures should be instilled.
4. To ensure overall bathroom safety, it would be advisable if you would get rid of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Kids might reach the medicines or might stand at fixtures to reach the cabinet. They may accidentally and unknowingly harm themselves by swallowing medicine tablets or drinking syrups. For bathroom safety, medicines and medicine cabinets can be kept elsewhere to get rid of the possibility of occurrence of over dosage.
5. Inspect the electrical wirings inside the bathroom and make sure there are no exposed electric outlets or plug sockets. For your bathroom safety, makes sure the possibility of accidental electrocution would be eliminated.
6. Always turn off heaters when not in use. Kids may accidentally turn knobs and soak themselves wet at the shower. There have been incidences when kids got burns because the water from the shower is too hot. To ensure bathroom safety, place the heaters at locations that really could not be reached by children even if they try so hard.
7. To ensure overall bathroom safety, make sure the bathroom door is always closed. There are accessories that would ensure that the door is always closed. If the doors are shut, kids would not be able to slip in and bathroom safety would be upheld.
On top of all these bathroom safety tips, it would also be advisable if you would put mats or easy-dry carpets on the floor so the tiles would not get too slippery. Kids would easily slip and fall to the floor if the flooring of the bathroom remains very slippery. Also keep the overall cleanliness of the bathroom monitored and well kept. Doing so would help ensure overall bathroom safety.
While there is nothing you can do to completely eliminate all risks for older people in the bathroom, there are several low- or no-cost things you can do with very little effort or expense. For under $10, and sometimes at no cost at all, you can make a bathroom safer for everyone who uses it:
1. Get rid of the clutter. Clothing and towels on the floor are invitations to a trip and fall. Cluttered shelves lead to things falling onto the floor. When older people have to bend down to pick items up they are at a high risk for a tumble.
2. Store things where they are reachable without bending, stooping or stretching. As we get older we tend to also get shorter, not to mention we can develop arthritis and other problems that reduce our flexibility. Give your senior the middle shelf and you take the high and the low shelves or cabinets.
3. Senior eyes need more light to see clearly. Increase the amount of light by using the strongest possible bulbs in your bathroom fixtures. Install an inexpensive light in the closet if you don't have one.
4. Take everything up off the bathroom floor, including those decorative rugs and mats. Even the best rubber-backed rugs can catch a foot and cause a fall. Hang your bath mats between uses. If the floor is cold, buy your elder a nice new pair of slippers.
5. If your tub or shower floor is white, invest in a colorful non-slip rubber mat. Seniors with vision problems such as cataracts or macular degeneration will have difficulty seeing white against white. It is easier to judge distance with a colored mat that stands out against the white background.
6. Get rid of all glass in the bathroom. Even decorative items such as candle holders or perfume bottles can fall and shatter, especially on a tile floor. You don't want anyone picking glass shards out of their feet.
7. Install a night light with a battery backup in case of a power failure. Alternatively, hang a flashlight on a convenient hook. Put a few strips of luminescent tape on the flashlight so it can be found in the dark.
8. Make sure the hot water temperature is set to no more than 120 degrees so that no one can ever be dangerously scalded by hot water straight from the tap.
9. If your bathroom door does not have the kind of locks that can be opened easily from the outside, remove the door locks, or turn them around so that your elder cannot be trapped inside a locked bathroom.
10. Keep an extra roll or two of paper within easy reach at all times.
Just these ten simple and inexpensive things will make your bathroom safer for the older people in your family. For that matter, the bathroom will be safer for everyone who uses it, from two to 102.