The house is not ready
You can buy every lock in the hardware store and still lose a minute to a coffee on the edge of the bench. Watching them is the safety system. The locks are the backup.
Raising Children says child-proofing makes the home safer, and active supervision is one of the keys. An adult house is full of things that hurt a child. Even after you think you have cleared it, they fall.
Then they learn to climb and to open, and the hazard you solved at sitting age is back when they can reach the bench. The check is not once. It is every time they get a new trick.
There is a second half people skip because it sounds soft. A place with something worth doing, something to look at and handle, means they are less driven to explore the drawer you actually fear. Boredom is a safety issue.
A basket of safe stuff on the floor is not clutter. It is a decoy that works.
Furniture and equipment for the baby should meet Australian standards, or the joint Australian and New Zealand ones. Cot, high chair, gate, pram, carrier. The cheapest online thing with no standard is not a bargain if it folds wrong.
Read the bit about slings and prams before you wear the baby or park them. Position matters. A standard mark is the start, not the whole manual.
Burns and scalds are distance. Barbecue, fire, heater, hot surface, hot liquid, hot food. The tea you put down behind you is the classic.
The bath is on the same map. Safe water temperature, and then empty it. A puddle in the tub after you walked away is how the page's drowning warnings meet your Tuesday.
You will not remove every risk. The page says tumbles still happen. Your job is to make the serious ones less likely and to be close enough to interrupt the rest.
That means you are in the room for the bath, the cooktop, the top of the stairs, the dog's water. A gate is a delay, not a parent. A monitor is a speaker.
You still walk in.
Do a slow lap this weekend at their height. What can they pull. What can they mouth.
What is hot. What has a cord. Fix two things, not twenty, and do another lap when they start pulling up.
Tell anyone who minds them the same two things. The house only stays safe if the next adult knows what you know.
Source: Raising Children Network