Childproofing your home: a room-by-room checklist

Childproof your home before the baby starts crawling, at around six to eight months. The most important things, in order: a cooker guard and hot drinks out of reach, medicines and chemicals locked away, window restrictors on every window, furniture and the TV anchored to the wall, a stair gate, and a floor clear of anything small enough to fit inside a toilet roll tube. Falls, scalds, poisoning and choking are the most common accidents at home, and almost all of them can be prevented.

A Sunday morning in a three-room flat in Solna: the eight-month-old who on Tuesday was only lying on her tummy is now halfway under the coffee table holding a button battery from the remote control. That is how it goes. There is no week in which a baby goes from still to mobile, there is a day, and nobody knows which one. Here is what to do before that day, room by room, and what can wait.

What is dangerous at which age

Age	Biggest risks	Do first
0 to 6 months	Falls from the changing table and sofa, suffocation in bed, scalding in the bath	A hand on the baby while changing, own bed with no pillows, bath water at 37 degrees
6 to 12 months	Small objects in the mouth, sockets, cables, furniture tipping over, stairs	The toilet-roll test on the floor, socket covers, anchor furniture, stair gate
1 to 2 years	Climbing, windows, cooker, hot drinks, medicines, chemicals	Window restrictors, cooker guard, everything dangerous locked away, not just up high
2 to 4 years	Opens doors and drawers, copies adults, is left alone for short spells	Locks on the knife drawer and larder, keys out of the front door, balcony
4 to 6 years	Sharp objects, bikes, swimming, cooking with you	Teach the child rules instead of only blocking things off

The kitchen

• A cooker guard or hob rail, and pan handles turned inwards. Scalding from hot water and coffee is the most common burn in children under three.
• No hot drinks on the edge of the table or in your lap with the baby. One cup of tea is enough for a serious scald.
• The oven door gets hot on the outside on many ovens. Door guards exist, or keep the child out of the kitchen while the oven is on.
• Knives, scissors, plastic bags in a locked drawer. Drawer latches work for a couple of years, then the child learns to open them.
• The dishwasher closed and locked: the detergent is corrosive and the knives in the basket point upwards.
• Cleaning products under the sink go up high and under lock. A childproof cap is not childproof, it is child-resistant.
• Tablecloths are a good way to pull down a coffee pot. Put them away for a few years.
• The high chair with the harness on, and never unattended.

The bathroom

• Never leave the child alone in the bath, not even to fetch the towel. Children can drown in a few centimetres of water, silently and in under a minute. Get everything ready first.
• Bath water at 37 degrees, test it with your elbow. Run the cold first and the hot last, so the tub is not scalding when the child reaches into it.
• The hot tap should not be able to reach scalding temperature. Many mixer taps can be set with a limit, check yours.
• Medicines, razors, perfume in the top bathroom cabinet with a lock. Vitamins and iron tablets count as medicine.
• The toilet lid down, ideally with a lock during the first year. Small children tip forward head first.
• Hairdryers and straighteners unplugged when not in use, and never near water.
• A non-slip mat in the bath.

The bedroom and the child's room

• The cot with a mattress that fits exactly, with no pillows, duvets, soft toys or bumpers before the age of one. The baby sleeps on their back.
• The changing table is the most common fall in the first year. One hand on the baby the whole time, everything laid out before you put the baby down.
• Cords and strings from blinds, lamps and curtains out of reach. Cords can strangle.
• Furniture that tips: chests of drawers, bookcases and the TV must be fixed to the wall with brackets. Children pull the drawers out and climb them. This is the item most families skip, and the one that causes the most injuries.
• Small objects from older siblings: beads, Lego pieces, magnets. A separate playroom or a high shelf for the older child's things.
• A bed guard when the child moves to their own bed, or a mattress on the floor.

The living room

• Table corners at the child's head height get corner protectors. Glass tables go into storage for a few years.
• Sockets with covers, or new sockets with built-in shutters. Loose cables and extension leads behind furniture.
• Houseplants: many are poisonous to eat and the soil is interesting. Up high.
• Button batteries in remote controls, toys, scales and lighters. A swallowed button battery burns a hole in the oesophagus within hours and is an emergency. Battery compartments should be screwed shut.
• Radiators that get hot need a cover or the thermostat turned down.
• Smoke alarms in every bedroom and in the hallway, tested every month, and a fire blanket in the kitchen.

The hallway, the stairs and the windows

• A stair gate at both the top and the bottom of the stairs, screwed into the wall, not a pressure-fitted one at the top.
• Window restrictors on every window the child can reach, from the moment they can climb. A restrictor that lets the window open only a crack. Ground-floor windows count too, a fall from one metre is enough for a baby.
• The balcony door locked, and no furniture or boxes the child can climb on by the railing. Gaps in the railing a child could crawl through are covered.
• Keys out of the front door, so the two-year-old cannot unlock it and walk out. Many families fit a latch up high.
• Shoes and bags: bags contain medicines, nicotine products and coins. Up on the shelf.

What cannot be blocked off

No childproofing replaces supervision, and after the age of two, supervision does not replace rules either. From around two you start explaining: the cooker is hot, we look but do not touch. From four the child can stand at the cooker with you, your hand over theirs. That is how children learn, and it is also why the childproofing can come down as the child understands, not all at once. What to do if an accident happens anyway is covered in Burns in children, Child swallowed something dangerous and Child hit their head. And take a course in Paediatric CPR, ideally before the baby is born.

How we do it with our families

When one of our nannies starts with a new family with a child under two, she walks through the home with a parent the first time, not to judge but to know: where are the medicines, is there a cooker guard, which door leads to the balcony. Doaa always does it, and she has asked three families to screw the chest of drawers in the child's room to the wall. When she is alone with the child she puts her own bag up on the hallway shelf, because it contains both painkillers and hand sanitiser, and she makes her tea while the child sleeps. On the note she leaves, she writes if she has noticed anything new: that the child can open the gate now, that a chair is standing under the window.

This text is general information and does not replace advice from BVC (the child health clinic every family is enrolled in), your vårdcentral (local health centre) or 1177 (the national healthcare helpline). If you are worried about your child, call 1177. In an emergency, call 112.

Read more: Child swallowed something dangerous · Burns in children · When do babies start crawling and walking? Motor development in the first year · Paediatric CPR

Frequently asked questions

When do we need to childproof the home?

Before the baby starts crawling, usually at around six to eight months. It goes faster than you think from a baby lying still to one pulling up on a bookcase. Do the kitchen, the bathroom and the windows first, the rest during the first year.

Which accidents are most common for small children at home?

Falls, scalds, poisoning and choking on small objects. Falls from changing tables, stairs and furniture that tips over, scalds from hot drinks and tap water, poisoning from medicines, nicotine and cleaning products, choking on small objects such as batteries, magnets and parts of toys. Almost all of them can be prevented.

How do we know which objects are a choking risk?

The rule of thumb is that anything that fits inside an empty toilet roll tube can get stuck in the throat of a child under three. Check the floor at the eye level of a crawling baby, especially in rooms where older siblings play. Button batteries and small magnets are the most dangerous and mean a trip to A&E straight away if swallowed.

Do we need window restrictors in a flat?

Yes, on every window and balcony door the child can reach, even on the ground floor, and especially if a sofa or bed stands underneath. Window restrictors and safe balcony railings are needed from the moment the child can climb, at around one year, and for several years after.

What do we do with medicines and chemicals?

Up high and locked away, not just up high. Children climb on boxes and chairs. That includes vitamins, iron tablets, nicotine products, dishwasher tablets and lamp oil. Keep everything in its original packaging so you can read out the contents to Giftinformationscentralen (the Swedish Poisons Information Centre) if something happens anyway, and count the tablets.