One of the primary goals that you will always have as a parent is to ensure the safety of your children. When they are young babies, this is particularly important, as there are so many things that can prove harmful or even fatal if you are not careful. Knowing what these are, and then working to minimize their likelihood, is one of the main things that you will always need to do as a parent.
In this post, we are going to go through some of the main ways in which you need to ensure you are keeping your baby safe. As long as you have done the following, you are going to have a much safer baby on your hands, and you’ll be able to worry a lot less.
Avoiding Choking
One of the quickest and most likely ways your baby can come to harm is through choking, either on food or another object. Food, however, remains the most common item that babies choke on, by far. When you are feeding your baby with a bottle, always be sure to hold both the baby and the bottle during the whole feed. Similarly, always keep small objects out of their reach — babies will always try to put everything in their mouths! When your baby is eating solid food, always make sure to cut it up into the smallest possible bites. Finally, be careful about which kinds of toys you let them play with, and particularly keep them away from those with small parts.
Feeding Properly
As we saw above, feeding is one of the times when you need to take great care, as it is possible that your baby can choke. But there are other reasons too that you will need to ensure you are focusing on feeding them properly. For one thing, you need to look into what you are feeding them, as there are several ways your baby could come to harm here. For one thing, you might want to make sure that you are aware of which brands of baby formula have often led to serious health issues in babies — this is more common than you might think and often results in a baby formula lawsuit being sought out. As long as you keep away from those brands, you should be okay.
On top of that, just pay attention to how they react to whatever you feed them. It is perfectly possible they have an allergy or intolerance, so you need to make sure that you are keeping aware as you feed them, so that you could then change their diet as appropriate.
Understanding Suffocation
One of the most worrying possibilities with a baby is that of suffocation. In particular, you need to ensure you are avoiding the use of pillows and duvets, as they can easily suffocate if their face becomes covered. You need to take great care with how you put them to sleep for this reason too — they should always be on their back, and with the blanket tucked across their chest and under their arms. Keep the cot free of pillows and soft toys.
If you carry your baby in a sling, make sure you are following the proper procedure in order to avoid suffocation. One method is known as TICKS, which stands for Tight, In view, Close enough to kiss, Keep their chin off their chest, Support the back. If this is followed, they are almost certainly going to remain safe while you carry them around.
Avoiding Strangulation
Another common issue is that of strangulation, which again can unfortunately happen all too easily, and can prove fatal. But again with some simple steps being followed, you should be able to ensure that your baby does not suffer in this way either. In particular, you should aim to keep obvious possible strangulation items out of reach, such as curtain cords or any other such items such as a drawstring bag or the cord from a dressing gown or robe. Similarly, you should avoid using cot bumpers in their cot, as they can be a significant hazard in this respect. You will find that it is simply not worth the risk.
As you can see, there are a lot of things you need to think about to keep your baby safe and these are just some of the most important. If you have thought about the above, you are going to have a safer baby, and you will be much less likely to experience any devastating situations.
