As parents, we constantly worry about the safety of our kids. Mine constantly seem to be inventing ways to try to take themselves out!
The kitchen is an area of your home that can contain a lot of dangers! From hot cooking surfaces, splashing liquids, cleaning products, knives, etc. So baby proofing your kitchen and teaching your kids kitchen safety is important!
Check out these simple yet effective ways to help keep your kids safe in the kitchen.
Everyone’s home is different. This post should not be considered an exhaustive list for keeping your child safe in your kitchen.
This post includes sponsored content from Sure Basics. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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Baby Proofing Kitchen Cabinets
One place you’ll probably want to keep your kids out of is the kitchen cabinets unless you want dishes on the floor all the time!
It’s especially important to baby proof those that contain any dangerous items.
I love these cabinet locks from Sure Basics because they are easy to install and you can use them whether your cabinets have handles or not! They’re great for bathroom cabinets too.
Each set includes 8 cabinet locks and they’re even reusable!
They really do take less than a minute to install and no drilling is required. Check out the video below to see how easy they are to use!
With any kid locks try not to let your child see you open it. You’ll be amazed how quickly they’ll figure out how to imitate you and get past your security system.
Baby Proofing Electrical Outlets
Electrical outfits are something everyone has in and around their house, including the kitchen. To ensure kids don’t stick anything in them and risk electrocuting themselves they need to be covered.
You can go for the tiny ones that are a pain to get out orr you can get the Sure Basics outlet covers! They cover half of the outlet or the entire outlet making it much more aesthetically pleasing and harder for kids and guests to notice the covers.
I also found them much easier to get out than the small type as there is more area to grasp.
Protecting against sharp corners
Tables always seem to be just the right height for kids to run into them. Protect against sharp corners with some simple corner cushion protectors. These ones from Sure Basics are pretty cool as they come pre-loaded with 3M strips. You simply pull them off and stick them on.
I’ve tried the adhesive-free versions before and they did NOT work. They fell off constantly until we just abandoned them altogether.
They are available in different sizes and colors. You can get the ones that will work best for your tables.
Baby Proofing the stove
Your stove is going to be one of the biggest dangers in your kitchen! Heat, flames, boiling liquids, popping grease, all of these things can cause major harm to your child.
Stove Knobs
Luckily for me the knobs on my stove at home are up high well out of reach of my kiddos.
But, at my grandma’s they are at the perfect height for my curious 18-month-old. Not only is there a danger of a child turning on the stove and touching a flame but if you have a gas stove they could turn it on just enough to fill your home with gas.
There are two solutions to this. If the knobs easily come off your stove you can simply remove the knobs when you aren’t cooking. You can also get stove knob covers which are made to prevent your child from being able to turn the knobs.
Hot Pans
Hot pans and the food or liquid inside are another potential hazard surrounding your kitchen stove.
Always ensure the handles are turned towards the back so your child cannot easily grab it and tip the contents onto themselves.
You can also use the back burners whenever possible to keep pans further from reach and prevent the front burners from being hot.
Teaching your kids about what hot means is also important. Without meaning hot is just a word to them. Believe me, I was skeptical when my husband said he wanted our girls to understand hot.
Now, obviously don’t let them touch anything that would actual burn them. But you can let them feel the cup you have a hot drink in for instance. Connect that feeling to the word hot will give it meaning for them and may help to keep them safe.
Keep them off the counters
Keeping things away from the edge is all well and good, so long as your kids aren’t using stools to reach theses items. Be sure to close and put away all stools, chairs, learning towers, etc when not in use.
It only takes a second for a child to climb up there and grab a dangerous item you thought was safely out of reach. Not to mention the added danger of falling off of whatever they are using as a step stool.
Knives
Knives are yet another danger in the kitchen. When in use be sure to always put them away when you’re done or place them far back from the edge if you have to leave them unattended.
A child can easily reach up on a counter and grab a knife that is too close to the edge!
Wherever you store your knives you’ll want to ensure they are high enough to be out of reach or if you keep them in a drawer you’ll want to use drawer locks to keep curious kids out. (The downside is most of these locks use magnets which always make me nervous around kids.)
If you store them in a knife block like we do at my house be sure to move it if your child is up at the counter helping you cook. Once, when I was baking with my toddler, I turned to the other counter to grab an ingredient and when I turned back she was reaching to pull a knife out of the block!
If I had been turned for another few seconds she could’ve had a knife out. I had to explain to her that they were dangerous and be extra cautious and aware the next time I had her up at the counter with me.
How to keep toddlers out of the kitchen
How do you just plain keep kids out of the kitchen? Or at least far enough back that they are out from underfoot and at a safe distance?
Baby gates are of course a good choice, especially with babies. But curious toddlers want to be a part of the action.
The solution at our home is the red line. The red line was born of course out of frustration at constant telling my daughter to stay back and trying to explain a stopping point to her on our white tile floor. To her of course it all looked the same.
So one day I decided we needed a line. I reached in our junk drawer and we had yellow and red electrical tape. Red seemed the obvious choice. So I made a big line down the floor with it to give her a visual boundary.
To my surprise it was actually quite effective! Now there was a tangible, visual line for her to understand the boundary. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing look but does often end up being a conversation piece with guests and always brings a chuckle.
While my younger daughter has been a little slower to actually follow the red line rule she clearly knows where it is as you can see above. She’s slowing understanding…or maybe just slowly respecting the boundary more and more.
Please remember that all of these items and suggestions are just to give you ideas and none of them can replace adult supervision when your child has access to the kitchen. Accidents can happen quickly and it’s almost impossible to think up all the dangerous things a curious child can get into in a kitchen.
Have kitchen safety hacks to share with other parents? Please drop a comment below!
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