As parents, it is our job to keep our children safe and sound protecting them from all the dangers in the world. Unfortunately, dangers and hazards don’t only exist outside the safety of our family homes, which is why we childproof our homes to reduce the chance of accidents and injuries at home.
Published: December 8, 2023
By: Dotcom Blinds
Author Website: Click to Visit
While lots of areas for childproofing are common sense for most parents, like putting child gates at the top of your stairs, hiding away hazardous chemicals like bleach, and securing heavy furniture to the walls – There is an area of childproofing that is easy for parents (especially first-time parents) to overlook, window shades.
While our humble window shades may seem safe and unhazardous, if your blinds or curtains have a cord or chain to operate them, they can pose a risk as curious children can get caught and even choke themselves with the cords, and according to NPR around 2 children a day in the US are treated for injuries caused by corded window shades.
Don’t worry though, this is why we child-proof our homes. Luckily there are quite a few ways that parents can make their home’s window shades safer for young children, so we spoke to shading experts DotcomBlinds, to discover the best ways to make your shades child safe..
Use Safety Clips on Corded Shades
Shades like pulley curtains or roller blinds that use looped cords or chains to operate pose the biggest risk to children, as they can get their heads caught in the chain and choke themselves, you can prevent this by using safety clips for your corded blinds.
Having a safety clip installed for your corded blinds will keep the cord or chain taut, preventing your little one from getting caught in the cord of the blind and preventing the risk of injury. Of course, as a parent, you’ll need to remember to re-clip the cord after using your shades.
Swap Cord Control for Cranks
If the presence of a cord or chain is still worrying you, you can always change the mechanism of your shades to be a wand or crank mechanism, rather than corded. Rather than pulling a chain, with a crank you have a hanging stick that you twist around to move the shade.
By completely removing the cord from the equation, your shades will be much safer for your children as a crank operation poses practically no danger to children. Even extra cautious parents will be happy, as the crank stick can be detached from the blind when not in use to keep it out of the reach of children.
Go Completely Hands Free
Now, if you’re still worried about the safety of your child around window shades, you can completely remove all hand-operated parts from the blind and upgrade to a modern, hands-free version, like a remote-controlled curtain or smart blinds.
As these shades are remotely operated and have no elements dangling off them, they are entirely safe for houses with children and pose no risk to your little ones.