A child’s indoor environment is where play, learning, development and interactions occur. For infants and toddlers to take full advantage of these experiences, they must be safe to explore and make discoveries. This lesson will examine the environmental safety hazards for indoor environments, toys and materials.

Outdoor play settings offer many learning opportunities and pose many hazards. Reducing the hazards will allow children to be free to safely explore and to make discoveries. This is the key to learning and making discoveries that support learning.

For children to grow, develop and learn, they must be healthy and safe. They rely on adults to protect them. Families trust you to keep their children safe. Essential indoor safety practices include providing supervision during routine care, play, and learning, and maintaining caregiver-to-child ratios.

As with indoor environments, examined in Lesson Three, promoting safety and maintaining ratios for infants and toddlers in outdoor play environments is important for their safety, development, and learning. Outdoor environments pose different and sometimes greater risk of injury. A heightened level of supervision is warranted.

Promoting safe sleep practices is a public health priority. Much research has been conducted about safe sleep practices that address sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and suffocation risk reduction. Simple care giving techniques can play a critical role in keeping infants safe during sleep. 

Because you spend a significant amount of time with infants and toddlers, you are in a position to see possible signs of abuse. If you do, you need to report suspected abuse.

Emergencies can happen any time. Being prepared for potential emergencies can help you keep infants and toddlers safe and calm during stressful situations. This lesson will focus on helping you plan, organize, and practice evacuation and emergency procedures. This includes contingency procedures for tornadoes, terrorist threats, epidemics, and other emergencies.

Despite your best efforts to keep infants and toddlers safe, injuries can happen. You must be prepared to respond quickly when a child or staff member gets hurt. This lesson will help you recognize different events that can cause injuries, how to keep infants and toddlers safe, and when to get them medical attention.