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Baby Toy Safety Tips to Protect Your Child

Baby Toy Safety Tips to Protect Your Child

Each year, thou­sands of babies are injured by play­ing with toys that are unsafe. While most man­u­fac­tur­ers have taken great care to ensure their toys are baby-safe, the injuries con­tinue. Some­times, it’s due to the man­ner in which the toys were built. Other times, babies are left unat­tended with toys that are oth­er­wise safe but can still cause harm when the baby is alone. The injuries are always unfor­tu­nate. Some are tragic. Thank­fully, with diligence, most of the toy-related harm that hap­pens to babies can be pre­vented. In this arti­cle, you’ll dis­cover the toy haz­ards that can poten­tially hurt your child.

Beware Of Sharp Edges And Points

Toys aren’t typ­i­cally sold with sharp edges and points. How­ever, some toys are man­u­fac­tured in such a way that they appear harm­less but can cause injury when played with. Also, though many baby toys are built absent of any edges or points that can pierce, cut, or oth­er­wise injure your child, they can break. When a baby plays with a toy, pieces can break off expos­ing sharp points that can slice or punc­ture the skin. When you buy a new toy for your baby, take time to inspect it. Remove it from the pack­ag­ing. Take note of any poten­tial breaks or dam­age that can expose metal, glass, or hard plas­tic edges.

Watch The Small Parts

Most baby toys don’t allow small parts to be removed or unfas­tened. They’re typ­i­cally sold in 1 piece. But, toys break eas­ily. Sim­ply drop­ping it onto the ground can cause pieces to loosen. The parts may not break off at that moment, but a slight pull or tug by your baby can eas­ily cause the part to dis­lodge from the toy. Because babies tend to put things into their mouth, this can be extremely dan­ger­ous. Small parts can be swal­lowed and become lodged deep in your baby’s throat, cut­ting off air. Or, your baby may place the small piece in her ear or nose. There, it can remain out of reach as your baby screams in pain. While con­sid­er­ing toys to buy, make sure there are no remov­able parts. Keep in mind the mate­ri­als from which the toy is con­structed. Hard plas­tic can eas­ily break off and cause injury.

Mind The Projectiles

Sur­pris­ingly, there are a few toys that are sold with the abil­ity to shoot small pro­jec­tile parts. There’s very lit­tle power behind the pro­jec­tile, but its size can cause a tragic prob­lem. Your baby might swal­low the pro­jec­tile. Or, it can strike your baby’s eyes. Every pre­cau­tion that you take in pur­chas­ing baby toys with small parts should be taken when buy­ing toys that pro­pel small objects. These toys can become deadly in a baby’s hands.

Choos­ing Toys Your Baby Can Handle

There’s a lot you can do to ensure your baby is never exposed to the dan­gers of haz­ardous toys. It requires a bit of fore­thought. For each toy you pur­chase, ask your­self whether the toy is too small. You don’t want your baby to swal­low the toy. How heavy is the toy? If dropped onto your baby’s head, can it cause an injury? Does it have a cord that your baby may inad­ver­tently wrap around his neck? Are there pieces that are loose on the toy? With time, can those pieces become detached and pose a safety threat?

These are the ques­tions you should ask your­self when­ever you buy a baby toy. By being mind­ful of the poten­tial haz­ards, you can all but guar­an­tee the safety of your baby. Thou­sands of babies are injured by toys each year. Nearly every injury could have been pre­vented. Use the tips above to pro­tect your child.

Watch the video related to baby toys

Time laps of Charles-Edward, my 9 month old son, play­ing with his toys and cre­at­ing chaos in the din­ning room. www.francisvachon.com PS the song is “Ensem­ble” by Coeur de Pirate. Buy it online on iTune: itunes.apple.com ******** Time laps de mon fils de 9 mois Charles-Edward alors qu’il joue dans la salle à dîner et créer un chaos total Edward a son blog à bebestory.wordpress.com www.francisvachon.com PS La chan­son est “Ensem­ble” par Coeur de Pirate. Disponible sur iTune: itunes.apple.com…

Help answer the ques­tion about baby toys

How do I teach my dog the dif­fer­ence between dog toys and baby toys?
I never real­ized until I was preg­nant how sim­i­lar they are! One of my three dogs is a toy mon­ger. The best toy is a toy another dog is play­ing with. The other two could care less (prob­a­bly because they never get a chance to play with them).

Since we have a baby on the way, how do I teach the dog which toys are not his?

About Author


Sweet­Made­lyn is a baby bou­tique offer­ing unique baby gifts, fur­ni­ture and clothes in designer and organic options.

  1. Anonymous Jan 24th, 2010 @ 00:17 | #1

    NO COMPRENDE

  2. Theodore Satou Jan 24th, 2010 @ 00:25 | #2

    So you put some­thing in its mouth, it suck it, then it cries?

  3. Dogma (puppy due July 25th) Jan 24th, 2010 @ 00:49 | #3

    My dog has “HIS” toybox

    My Baby has “HER” toybox

    Toys are kept separate.

    Baby is only allowed to play with her toys.. if she has a dog toy, I remove it from her and give her one of HER toys

    Dog is only allowed to play with his toys.. if he has a baby toy, I remove it and give him one of HIS toys.

    Even­tu­ally the toys will have their indi­vid­ual scent and your dog should be able to rec­og­nize which are his and which belong to the baby.

    Baby toys are also put away when she’s done play­ing.. they are not left lay­ing any­where. Most of her toys are kept in the liv­ing room, which is baby gated off– the dog has lim­ited access to that room.

    The best solu­tion is to just super­vise, and make sure that baby toys are put away when the baby is not play­ing with them. Your child can learn at a young age to keep her toys picked up, or they may become chewed up.

  4. beg82920 Jan 24th, 2010 @ 00:54 | #4

    !!!! WAIT !!!!! ANSWER #1 IS 100% INCORRECT !!!

    He states

    Stick with wooden or cloth/plush toys for a baby — that’s one option. ”

    The wooden toys from China are the ones that are painted and have the biggest chance of hav­ing lead based paint (LBP). Cloth/plush items will (can) col­lect lead dust from floors. And then pass it to the kids if they are not cleaned / washed often.

    There was a web site for recalled toys but I can’t find it right now. But even this site may not list all the toys effected with lead. Its a good start but I would test each wooden OR PLASTIC toy I bought. There can be lead in plas­tic or vinyl.

    edit: found the web site… http://www.babycenter.com

    The eas­i­est way to test is with a prod­uct call “Lead Check”. They are small white tubes that deliver a chem­i­cal (sodium rodiz­inate) to the sur­face. If there is leach-able lead it will turn color (pink or red). Call around to your local paint stores to find them. There are many types of these chem­i­cal test kits but my opin­ion is Lead Check is the best / easiest.

    HINT: They cost about $3.00 each BUT !!! (Lead Check hates me to teach this) … There are 5 to 7 drops in each tube. If you use a clean dry cot­ton swab on each item, you can get 5 to 7 tests.

    (no I don’t work for or own stock in this co.) … :)

    For more info plese read http://home.mindspring.com/~wrltc/lswp.pdf A book I wrote for par­ents doing re-modeling or hav­ing it done. And lead issues in gen­eral. It was paid for by a fed/state grant. Which means its your book as much as mine. I am NOT try­ing to sell you any­thing. Edu­ca­tion about this sub­ject is my job.

  5. Theodore Satou Jan 24th, 2010 @ 10:40 | #5

    0:10 , “ree, cloaks!!” ok… ree cloaks…

  6. Theodore Satou Jan 24th, 2010 @ 11:25 | #6

    fukin funny

  7. Theodore Satou Jan 24th, 2010 @ 14:46 | #7

    oh my gosh azim­mafia speak proper eng­lish
    Whats all this ” girlzz deez dayzz ” what is the point in doing that???

  8. J.M. Jan 24th, 2010 @ 19:25 | #8

    I used to work in an infant room in a day­care cen­ter and DHS reg­u­la­tions had us spray the toys with diluted bleach…take a clean spray bot­tle and fill it full of water then add one table spoon of bleach to it. Spray the toys over the sink and let air dry. If there are stains on them you are try­ing to remove, you can sim­ply take a lit­tle bit of laun­dry deter­gent and rub it on the stain and then rinse it.

  9. Theodore Satou Jan 25th, 2010 @ 00:08 | #9

    It is ESTONIAN not German!

  10. Baba Booey! Jan 25th, 2010 @ 12:12 | #10

    I love dis­in­fec­tant spray! I think it is awe­some. Obvi­ously you don’t want to give it to your child while it is wet and you just freshly sprayed it, but I use it on my sons toys while he is nap­ping or after he goes to bed and put then run them under hot water and let them dry. It just makes me feel bet­ter. But also hot, soapy water works great too.

  11. greenarcher Jan 25th, 2010 @ 23:57 | #11

    toys r us

  12. Mallory is 13 months old Jan 26th, 2010 @ 04:21 | #12

    I agree with hot soapy water but you could also use a 50/50 solu­tion of water and per­ox­ide. If you are look­ing for a non toxic/healthy way to clean.

  13. Shauna A Jan 26th, 2010 @ 07:41 | #13

    No, most of the toys you will find at reg­u­lar com­mer­cial toy stores do con­tain ptha­lates. The FDA and other reg­u­la­tory agen­cies do now acknowl­edge any dan­gers in ptha­lates, parabens, diox­ins, SLS, sodium poly­acry­late, etc., so the man­u­fac­tur­ers don’t see a need to change to more expen­sive mate­ri­als. If you want non-toxic toys, shop at nat­ural baby stores. Some good online stores are:

    http://www.cottonbabies.com
    http://www.wilddill.com
    http://www.melissaanddoug.com

  14. Army Wifee Jan 26th, 2010 @ 14:44 | #14

    lemon juice or V8

  15. Theodore Satou Jan 26th, 2010 @ 22:10 | #15

    jee­jee, i am FINNISH!!!!!

  16. Theodore Satou Jan 26th, 2010 @ 23:50 | #16

    i no its not Ger­man and its not Eng­lish so wht lan­guage is it

  17. missy Jan 27th, 2010 @ 01:05 | #17

    You may be sur­prised how many of those toys can actu­ally sur­vive the washer and some even the dryer. I’ve washed many stuffed toys and they come out of the washer clean and in good shape. Use the gen­tle cycle and air dry them if you’re con­cerned about the heat of dryer. You might try it first with some­thing you’re not really attached to and see how it works for you.

  18. Theodore Satou Jan 27th, 2010 @ 07:28 | #18

    I am from Esto­nia and this IS ESTONIAN LANGUAGE!:)

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