Choose dining sets safe for toddlers

Choose dining sets safe for toddlers

Are you on the lookout for a new dining set? When you’re a young family on a budget it can be tempting to get a cheap, lightweight dining table and chairs. Unfortunately, when you have toddlers those lightweight pieces of dining room furniture can pose some serious hazards to your crawling or running little one.

Childproofing isn’t just about covering outlets and blocking doorways. You also need to make sure that you are childproofing your furniture, too, even if that means that you completely change your dining room design. Here are some things to consider when purchasing your next dining set.

Why it matters

Children under the age of 5 are generally still very rambunctious and curious, which can be a dangerous combination. Lightweight chairs can easily be knocked over, causing injury to the child or someone else. In addition, some toddlers will pull on anything to try to stand or lift themselves up from a crawling position, and lightweight furniture will topple rather than help pull them up.

Toddlers have also been known to grab the bottom of chair legs and pull trying to explore their expanded world. If the chairs are too lightweight, they will fall directly on the baby and could cause significant injury.

Finally, if you want to use your dining set with a booster chair rather than a high chair, solid chairs that cannot easily be tipped are even more important for your child’s safety. In general, you should analyze your options for dining sets to make sure they will be safe for your child.

What to look for

You don’t have to spend a fortune on new dining room furniture, but you should make sure that you get the right furniture for your new family. There are a few things that you should look for in product descriptions to learn whether or not the dining set will be safe for your young children. These include:

  • Having a heavy base or center of gravity that doesn’t allow easy tipping from any angle or force
  • A table with a solid wood base (natural hardwood or engineered wood) will support the weight of children who try to climb or lean on the table
  • Getting dining set with rounded corners rather than sharp edges will also eliminate some of the risks of head injuries as new walkers race through the room.

Don’t forget to childproof the other elements of your dining set

If you get a full dining set that includes a china cabinet, hutch, or buffet, you need to remember that all of those drawers and cubbies need to be childproofed as well. Make sure you choose items that allow for easy installation of the basic drawer and cabinet childproofing. This is something you need to think about as you shop, not after the furniture is in your home.

Wood that is too hard, or the cabinet doors don’t allow room for screwing on the latch, it’s not going to be something you can keep your toddler out of easily. Alternatively, you can tie cabinet handles together to decrease risk.

Conclusion

Hope these simple rules will be helpful to make a decision!
But even choosing some furniture online, you can ask for the advice of a professional designer that is available for free on the mentioned website or just on most of the high-quality furniture websites!
They can help to organize any space and to get the best variant for your budget.