Door Safety

Practicing Door safety is a lot more important than you think.

Do you really believe that your child cannot unlock and open that door?
Big mistake! That toddler of yours is a lot cleverer and a great deal
more capable than you believe.

One day, when my eldest son was the ripe old age of eighteen months, we
were playing in the lounge. It was a little chilly so I went to his
room to fetch a sweater for him. I was probably gone for less than a
minute.

When I got back, my son was nowhere to be found. I ran from room to
room calling and looking for him.

Then I heard a loud knock on the door. I quickly went to answer it and
saw a strange man on the door step, holding my son in his arms.

My precocious young man, had somehow opened and then closed the sliding
door, after which he managed to get the front gate open and then
wandered into the street.

Fortunately for us all, the street was a very quiet one, and the man
had been driving more slowly than usual, while looking for a local
address

I never even considered door safety and my child could have died
because of it. It is not enough to just lock a door or drawer or
cupboard and think that you have done your job adequately.

Some years ago, when my daughter was 14, she slipped and grabbed hold
of the lower half of a stable door just as the upper half slammed
closed. The flesh was completely stripped from one of her fingers and
she had to have the bone amputated.

Her finger was then rebuilt using skin from her chest and bone from her
rib, all of which caused her a lot of pain and anxiety for many
months.  Although nobody ever notices her finger, It still
does not look quite as pretty as her other fingers.

Once again, I did not practice door safety, as a result, my
daughter lost part of her finger and the fault and guilt are mine.

To prevent children from getting into or out of rooms and also to
prevent fingers being caught in drawers or kitchen cabinet doors, or
even to prevent kids from getting at the contents of drawers and
cupboards, it would be a good idea to act on the following guidelines:

Tips for door safety (as well as drawer safety)

• Replace lever type door handles with round knob handles.
  Toddlers have more difficulty holding and turning them.
• Attach doorknob covers to handles. Again, it makes it far
  more difficult (if not impossible) for a child to turn the knob.
• If you have a stable type door, either replace it with a
  single door, or use a piece of wood across the the join and nail it
  closed. If a child is holding onto the lower half and the upper half
  closes hard, it is quite possible for him to lose a finger
• Attach finger-pinch guards to the various doors in the
  house if you cannot secure them in the open position.
• Try putting a door hook fairly high up on the door, so a
  toddler cannot pull the door closed.
• You may wish to consider that one or two rooms be
  completely banned from children (eg: the home office). In which case
  simply attach a sliding bolt high up on the door.
• Use cabinet latches on cupboard doors, especially in the
  kitchen. I have one cupboard filled with plastic bowls, jugs, mugs
  etc., which my baby grandson is allowed to get into while we are in the
  kitchen. I did the same when my own kids were babies.

I know that this seems to be a lot of work. It is worth it though, to
know that you have done your best to keep your kids are as safe as it
is humanly possible to do. I didn’t know anything about child safety in
general, let alone the specifics such as door safety. As a result, I
also know the heartache of seeing my children hurt in ways that I might
have prevented, had I been a little more knowledgeable.

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Tagged as: door safety, sliding door, stable door