Hello! I am Colleen Driscoll. I am the owner of a childproofing company called Baby's Home Safe Home. Today, I am talking about childproofing the kitchen. Right now, we are going to talk about cabinet latches that you can add to your cabinets and drawers in the kitchen and other areas of your home.

I would like to start talking about where we latch. I recommend latching all the lower cabinets in your kitchen. Sometimes, parents want to leave one cabinet open that might include pots and pans. However, that can send mixed messages to children. While I cannot play with the pot when it's on the stove, but I can play with it on the floor. So I do recommend latching pots and pans.

As your child grows and develops you might want to add cabinet latches later. Here are some other great places to latch in the kitchen. We like to latch under the trash. We also like to latch a stack of drawers, sometimes children will open the bottom drawer and use it as a step ladder and gain access to dangerous items. Some families may have pull outs in their cabinets. If a child opens the cabinet and pulls out the pull out, they might be able to gain access to dangerous items on top of the counter.

Here are some other items that we like to latch in the kitchen. You might have glassware. Some of these contents are from a junk drawer, many kitchen have a junk drawer, that might have scissors, maybe you have batteries, keys; you don't like children playing with keys. Money, screw drivers and other tools, or maybe you have gadget drawer with wine openers, a peeler or maybe a meat thermometer. Knives and other cutting items we want to latch up. Also, choking hazards. Perhaps, you have something small and sharp like candles or a corn holder. And some food items we might want to latch up. We don't want children playing with oil or other foods that might be a choking hazard.

We will also latch plastic bags and foil. Children can cut their fingers on the sharp edges of a foil container.

Now, let's talk about what latches to use. We like to use self-locking latches. When you pull the cabinet door open and then shut it, the latch will lock automatically. This is one type of a self-locking latch that also has a catch piece that we install.

There are various different types of latches. Sometimes we will use magnetic latches. This is a sample of a magnetic latch where we use a special magnetic key to open the door. You can see that the magnetic key is rubbed on the outside of the door and that is what is deactivating the latch. This is a great latch to use because it will last longer than other latches because you can hide the keys away. Sometimes we stick them up high on the refrigerator or store them away where children can't see them.

Eventually kids will figure out cabinet latches and that's one reason we try to move things up out of sight and up high. There are special latches for the products such as the Lazy Susan or perhaps you are challenged with installing items, there are some latches that will wrap around knobs. However they don't fit on all cabinet types, and sometimes children can pull cabinet doors open and yank on them and defeat the latch.

Remember, children can quickly get into trouble. So supervision is always important. This is an example of a spring latch. This is a great latch to use in some places of your home. One place that we use it is on tall drawers in your kitchen. Sometimes the door is so top that it would bump a catch piece. This does not require a catch piece. It actually hooks on the cabinet frame inside.

Another great place for this is a type of cabinet called an inside cabinet where your door closes inside the framing. Once again a catch piece would not fit. So this is another great option to use. We have talked about various places to latch in the kitchen with different types of latches. You may need to try a combination of latches in your kitchen.

Now, we are going to move on to appliance and choking hazards.