Bathroom Safety Tips

Your bathroom is usually the smallest room in your house. Often, this requires safety as it becomes the most dangerous place in the house too. With hard and wet floors, it is necessary to take care while walking in the bathroom. Not only this, it is also the place where you keep all your cleaning products, which are poisonous and harmful and have to be kept away from the kids. The bathroom sinks, the bathtub and the toilet are made from porcelain, chrome or tile, which again become dangerous if you fall and hit your head on it. Considering all the above, bathroom safety becomes very important.

Apart from the above, bathroom is the place where you keep electrical appliances and medications. Also, it is the place which causes maximum slip and fall accidents at home. The combination of all the above makes this small room, potentially dangerous for all your family members. Following paragraphs will concentrate on bathroom safety from various aspects.

Tips for Bathroom Safety

Grab Bars
Bathroom safety grab bars are installed for securing your balance. The bathroom bars are secured horizontally or vertically on the walls of the bathroom near the shower and bathtub area and closer to the toilet. These grab bars assist in getting out of the tub, getting up from the commode and also prevents you from slipping when the floor is wet. These bars become necessary to ensure safety for elderly and children. Do not install these grab bars in a diagonal position, this will not support your weight. If you want, you can also install a bathtub bar on the side of the bathtub for extra balance and safety. These will be helpful to assist your children too. The look of your bathroom will not be compromised with these safety bars as there are different varieties of easily installable grab bars available in the hardware store that can match your needs and the bathroom decor too! You may also buy these online.

Toilets
Commodes, being low in height, can cause problems for elderly to use. Clamp-on toilet seat is available in the market, which not only raises the height of the toilet, but also has arms on its side which assist in easy sitting and getting up from the toilet seat. This is one of the best safety tips for elderly. Using of a commode chair also solves the accidents caused due to the low toilet heights. A grab bar close to the toilet will also help. Children love to play in the water. They get very fascinated with the water in the toilet too. This increases their chances of getting stuck in the toilet, or worse drowning in the toilet. Toilet seat locks is a good tip for bathroom safety for children.

Garbage Cans
You can't deny that there are chances of stumbling down because the garbage bin was in the way. Keep it under the wash basin so that you do not fall over it. Hazardous things like medications, discarded razor blades, cans of cleaning materials etc. are thrown in the garbage cans. Children will be very interested in rummaging into the garbage cans, if left unattended. Hence, it is vital to supervise your child and throw all these harmful materials in those cans that are out of their reach.

Electrical Appliances
Water and electricity never go hand in hand. Water is always present in the bathroom. Don't leave your appliances like hairdryer, shaving razor etc. close to the water. Also turn off the electricity and unplug the appliances, after using them, to prevent dangerous accidents. Install plastic plugs into the sockets so that the children are safe. Taking precautions for electrical safety is essential for bathroom safety.

Medicine Cabinets
Another potential source of danger, install the medical cabinets where the children will not be able to reach them. For further child safety, install child locks on these cabinets. Storing the medications in bottles with child proof caps, is another safety measure. Dispose off all the medication that has expired so that you or any other elderly person does not take them unknowingly.

Cleaning Supplies
Keep the cleaning supplies for bathroom cleaning, on a high shelf to keep it away from the children. Don't build this shelf too high, or you might end up falling down. If you can, install a grab bar under this shelf so that you can hold on to it while accessing the shelf. Ensuring that the cleaning products are away from the reach of children is a good bathroom safety tip.

Keep a mop handy in the bathroom and dry the tiles every time the bathroom is used. This will ensure that the bathroom is water free, thus, minimizing the accidents. As you can see from the above, there are many things that make your bathroom unsafe for children, elderly and for you too. This makes bathroom safety very important. Closely supervise your children even if you have all the possible safety devices in the bathroom. After all, family safety is the priority of our life!