Sure, it's amazing to have a small child or a toddler around the house. But it is also extremely scary, especially for the parents. The kind of trouble they can get into just by walking into the wrong place at the wrong time can have absolutely horrifying consequences in extreme cases. There are some parts of the house that are especially dangerous for young children. For example, even the area around a fireplace can be hot enough to severely burn a small child's delicate skin. Similarly, the top of the stairs is no place for an unsupervised toddler. What you need to keep your children away from these areas and thus away from trouble, are baby safety gates. These ensure you don't have to keep an eye on your child every single moment of the day or restrict their movement to a single room or area when you cannot watch them.

However, you need to remember some points if you want these gates to be completely effective. Here is a checklist of the things you need to do when installing baby safety gates:-

1. Do not recycle old safety gates. Remember, many of those gates don't adhere to modern safety standards, and long periods of disuse and wear and tear has probably made them even less secure. "They were good enough for me" is an argument that should not be used when the safety of your child is concerned.

2. Waiting to install the gates until your child starts walking is a terrible mistake. The longer you put it off, the more the chance of accidents are. Identify danger zones and close them off before your baby leaves the crib, not after.

3. Planning to install the baby safety gates yourself? Make sure you have read and understood the instructions thoroughly first. In fact, unless you are really good with your hands and have all the right tools, it is better to get a professional to install them for you. A badly installed gate is worse than none at all. At least you won't have the illusion of security.

4. Baby safety gates are not very tall, so there may be the temptation to climb over them instead of unlocking, opening and then closing and locking them again. But that can be a very dangerous habit, because if your child tries to imitate you and climb over the gate on his own he can injure himself badly. The gate shouldn't just be a physical barrier but also a mental one; something that can only be crossed after unlocking. On that note, always keep the gate locked, even if your child isn't around or is sleeping. It's just good habit.

Baby safety gates are crucial for child safety no matter what kind of house or apartment you live in. Install them in your house, and learn to breathe easy.