Your Guide to Child-Proofing Interior and Exterior Doors

We’re talking about childproofing doors as it’s a very reasonable and useful, cost-effective way of ensuring your child’s safety when you’re busy doing something, and you can’t quite get there quickly enough to deal with your child’s natural curiosity.

As you will no doubt know, there are safety risks everywhere and in order to keep your children safe, you need to ensure that there are no hidden dangers lurking around to hurt your child.

Door securing devices are available both online and in DIY hardware stores near you.

Sometimes your child wants to follow you out of a room, or they want to know what’s going on behind that door. In order to stop this and prevent a potential injury, you can baby-proof, doors, handles, knobs and both interior and sliding doors. There are what’s known as door securing devices which you can buy at any local DIY store or online. These will help with injuries such as trapped fingers, which can be extremely painful resulting in bruising and in some instances broken bones.

Let’s start with exterior doors

Exterior doors are particularly tricky because they lead to the most exciting adventures for any child - the outside world. And most of the dangers you find outside can be deadly.  A child will always want to know what’s going on in the outside world. In order to avoid them going outside without your knowledge and meeting traffic, strangers, water or balconies if you’re upstairs, then there are a number of things you can do.

A security chain

This is a great way of stopping your child from getting outside as is a deadbolt. If you secure them above the handle and quite high up you’ll ensure your child can’t reach up and open it, especially if they’re mischievous enough to reach for a chair.

A door knob cover

This can be found to cover most door knobs and they’re excellent for preventing children from opening a door. They work much like the cap of a medicine bottle and remain on your door knob all the time without you having to take them on and off, preventing them from getting lost.

Lever-style handles

These are very easy for children to open but you can get specifically designed covers for these types of doors using either screws or adhesive strips.

Sliding doors

A sliding door can also be secured by using what’s known as flip locks that stick to the glass, again using adhesive strips. 

Interior doors to certain high-danger rooms need to be secured so your child is safe.

Interior doors also need locking devices to stop your children from getting out and into the middle of something that could cause all manner of injuries, such as burning, broken bones or head injuries. As you can imagine some rooms need entry restrictions more than others such as the kitchen, and any room where repairs are carried out. Or a media room with a lot of tech which means plugs and sockets.

Door top locks.

One of the ways you can protect the little ones is to invest in a door top lock which will work with most interior doors. This type of lock is installed onto the door and frame and locks and unlocks whichever side of the door you’re on. The latches can’t be removed or opened if they are installed high enough.

A door monkey

This will clip onto a door frame keeping it slightly ajar. This will lock the door but in an open position, not too open, but the idea is to allow air and small pets into the room. However, small children shouldn’t be able to get in or out. What’s also good is that it doesn’t allow any opportunity for fingers to get trapped in a door before it shuts, thus avoiding broken and bruised fingers.

A door unlock release

This will stop a child from accidentally locking themselves into a room by allowing the property owner to open the door from the other side. All you’ll need to do is tempt it open with a safety pin or a screwdriver, preferably something long that can get into the crack in the door and release the door unlock mechanism.

The Replacement Door Company - for the best quality internal doors and external doors.

As we’ve seen there are many solutions you can try to secure both your external doors and internal doors safely. This also keeps your children safe from harm, allowing you peace of mind, knowing your child can’t cause harm to themselves potentially leading to serious injury or in some extreme cases, death. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed today why not give us a call here at The Replacement Door Company. If you think you’d like to ask about our comprehensive range of doors then ask away, we’re always happy to help!