Have you thought about safety at home?

As a childminder, the safety within my home has been verified by a professional to make sure that my house is safe for another person child to reside in. Until I knew that someone was going to analysis this, if someone had asked me is my house safe. I would of said yes, but once I started checking I realised that there were some quick and easy things I could do to make my house safer.

Now you are probably wondering what this has to do with Pilates, but many people including me work and exercise from home now. As we are spending all this additional time at home why don't we take a few extra moments just to make sure we are as safe as we can possibly be. Let me share with you what I learnt.

Do a walk around your house and look for hazards. If you have children in your house go around again and do it at the height of your child (yep get on your knees or crawl around on your belly), you will be surprised what you didn't spot from up at adult height.

Chemicals and cleaning products are they secure (and if you have little ones on high shelves out of reach), and are they in correctly labelled bottles?

Where is your first aid kit? If you don't have one go buy one they are cheap and last a long time.

Have you got a fire blanket for your stove? Have you got fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors? Do you have enough, and are they placed in the correct places? You can ask the lovely fire service to do a home visit and they can double check that what you have meets their standards. I did and they were lovely, and came in the big engine - gush! They said I needed to add another one, and I thought I had enough as I already had one per floor, so it's worth a check. Have you tested your alarms to check they are still working. I push the button once a month to check the batteries haven't run out but also so that my littlens remembers what the noise is for. Have you done a practise evacuation? Have you planned it from all floors of your house? We have a metal rope ladder for upstairs that you can hook on to the window just in case in a fire I need to scale down the wall (when my son becomes a teenager I might regret this purchase).

When it comes to your exercise area, hopefully with your walk around you will have picked up on any trip hazards, or issues with the room itself, so let's move on to equipment. Have you checked all equipment is still in working order, especially with bands, you don't want one to ping as that snap against your thighs is a killer. If you use weights, that they are in a safe location which people will not trip on.

When doing a class on zoom...

When you are coming to zoom class, do think about....

- Having appropriate space, test it out before the class begins.

- Having appropriate clothing for the weather conditions.

- Have a full water bottle handy, in case you need to hydrate.

- Your phone to hand in case you need to make an emergency call.

- Ensure your contact information is up to date with your teacher in case of emergency so that in an emergency people can be directed to your location. Same applies if working out from a different location (e.g. if on holiday) from usual let your instructor know your location.

When doing a class face to face from your own residence...

Apart from doing all the lovely checks on your own home listed above, if you are welcoming a teacher into your house then if you could share the following with them, they would be truly appreciative....

- Where to park safely.

- Where your toilet is.

- Where your first aid kit is kept. - Multiple exits out of your house in case of fire/emergency including where keys are kept if for example the key for the backdoor doesn't live in the door.

- Where is your nearest defibrillator, if you don't know check out this website to locate it https://www.nddb.uk/

All of this doesn't take that long to do, an hour out of your life, and maybe a few click and collect parcels for things you don't have, but it could save your life one day, so completely worth doing. I once read a long time ago so can't quote it that you are more likely to survive a plane crash if you have determine your evacuation plan in advance. I think the same will apply to your house, plan how you will get out, and also where you will meet up with your loved ones. Be home, but be safe.

Thank U

p.s. image from https://pixabay.com/photos/home-safety-home-security-safe-4905025/