Household accidents are among the top reasons for emergency room visits for children under 3, according to KidsHealth.org, a division of the Nemours Foundation. Even a neat house could be dangerous when not properly childproofed, but cluttered homes are especially dangerous. When your home is filled with objects and is generally messy, your toddler might not have the space that he needs to learn, play and grow safely. Assess the risk for injury in your home and clean up your act so your toddler has a safe environment in which to play.
Furniture Dangers
When your home is filled with large pieces of furniture, it becomes dangerous for small children. Furniture can topple over and land on a toddler, resulting in bone breaks and even suffocation. If you have large furniture in your home, ensure that you keep it against a wall and use wall anchors to secure it from falling over. Watch your child to ensure that he doesn't climb on furniture and keep pieces well away from each other to avoid your toddler using smaller pieces of furniture as a stair or ladder to reach higher, more dangerous perches.
Choking Hazards
Clutter in the home often results in small items being left in the open. Toddlers are naturally curious and often use their mouths as a way to learn more about an object. If small collectibles, jewelry, loose change, tools and hardware and even inappropriate toys are left in your toddler's reach, they become a severe choking hazard. By keeping an uncluttered house, you more easily see which items are left out and whether or not they could pose a threat to your toddler.
Falls, Bumps and Bruises
A large variety of items cluttering up various areas in your home mean your toddler might not have the space necessary to practice basic skills, such as walking. Toddlers are often unsteady and clumsy and without the necessary space, could suffer injuries as a result of bumps, bruises and even breaks because of a lack of space. By ensuring that you toddler has room to roam and explore, you reduce his chances of being injured by items in the home.
Cognition and Focus
While the dangers of a cluttered home seem entirely physical, seeing a variety of objects at the same time could affect your toddler's cognition. A study published in a 2011 issue of "The Journal of Neuroscience" found that multiple stimuli being presented simultaneously to the vision field resulted in an overall lack of focus and limited processing capacity. While the study didn't delve into the effects on small children specifically, it presents the idea that clutter could affect your toddler's ability to focus and learn as he develops.
References
- KidsHealth from Nemours: Childproofing and Preventing Household Accidents
- FamilyEducation: Choking Hazards
- The Journal of Neuroscience; Interactions of Top-down and Bottom-up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex; S. McCains, et al.
