This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.
All opinions are 100% mine.
So, I’ve been contemplating making a change to our “living arrangements”–NO! Not in THAT way…but more like “incorporating the outdoors more into our daily life” arrangements. As in, I have a plan to make our porch, well, deck, a part of our living room…but the first step is making sure that the whole porch area is safe for the kids. Especially our littlies because the 13 year old–about to be 14, can handle himself for the most part. But, especially since we live on a lake and are so close to an un-fenced body of water (because who fences a lake?!), this is really important to us to prevent drowning (even writing it makes me really sad…). So, here it is, my lovelies, the best safety advice I have for the week: How to Make a Porch Safe for Kids to Play On. With a little help from Nationwide’s Make Safe Happen initiative (because they had some really great ideas).
How to Make a Porch Safe for Kids to Play On
- Ok, so these baby toes need the railing to be no more than 4 inches off of the deck top, so that sneaky babies can’t crawl under and out (I have like a 2-foot drop, but even if it was just 1-inch…they need to stay inside).
- I measured and our slats are located just at the recommended 4-inch gaps, but if your slats are spaced wider than 4 inches, you need to add slats to fill-in the gaps…so these sneaky toes can’t escape on their own. If adding slats isn’t something you can do (we couldn’t have if ours were above the 4-inch gaps), then you need to install a guard on the inside, especially if you have horizontal bars that those little ninja-toddlers could use to climb OVER the railing.
- We live near the lake, so we’ve installed self-locking latches so that if the kids are on the deck by themselves for ANY reason (which they should not be, but you never know), then they can’t get out into the yard and off into the lake. That would be bad.
I was reminded to think about these things because of Nationwide’s Safe Kids Day, which brings together families and the community to increase awareness about accidental injuries and raise funds to help prevent them. They’re hosting events all over, so you can check out their page here to find out about the events near you.
There are tons of ways you can protect your children from accidental injury (and even a few more ideas for protecting the kiddos on the porch, even, I’m sure). An easy way to start protecting them, though is by visiting the Make Safe Happen website and downloading the easy-to-use app. This can help you with some age appropriate and room-specific tips to help prevent kids from being injured in the home. See? Becoming an expert already, aren’t we, my lovelies! LOL!
Be sure to drop me a comment below if you have any ideas I can add to the list of How to Make a Porch Safe for Kids to Play On. And be sure to check out the Nationwide Safe Kids Day page for more information about where events are being held in your area!
