How can I make my home safe before leaving my child with a babysitter?
You want to follow all the same safety rules that you would whether there's a babysitter or not. You want to make sure there aren't any dangerous objects in your home. You want to make sure that anything that is a poison or that can be ingested is out of the reach of children. You want to make sure that if your house has any firearms in it, that they are properly secure. So those types of things. There's also areas of the house that you may want to lock. A lot of kids don't get hurt in the house; they get hurt in the garage, because that's where all of dad's power tools are, and that's where other objects are that you may not keep as safe as you would inside your house. So, usually, you usually just do the basics to, which incorporates "baby-proofing" your house. You go around your entire house at the same eye-level as your child. So if they are a toddler, you need to get down on your hands and knees, crawl all over your house, find out whatever you can put in your mouth and choke on or what you can electrocute yourself on and move it. Either cut it off or move it. So, it's really a common-sense thing, but I would also make sure that any of the food that you don't want them to get a hold of-- it could even be alcohol that happens to be sitting there-- make sure that anything you don't want your child to be in contact with is out of their reach.
