Child Toy Safety 101

The most important aspect in choosing child toys is child toy safety. Despite the effort from the toy industries and the federal government to ensure the safety of child toys entering the market, it is impossible to screen every single one of them.

Therefore,it is now up to the parents to double-check for the child toy safety prior to buying it. These followings are the guidelines for choosing safe child toys and avoiding child toy hazard to ensure your child has a fun and safe playtime.

First, select toys which have none of these features:

• sharp edges: child toys which are poorly constructed often have sharp edges. They may also break easily, exposing sharp edges.
• small parts: tiny toys or big toys with small removable parts can be swallowed or become lodged in a child's, ears or nose. Pay special attention on this if you have toddlers.
• sharp points: broken toys and pins or staples on doll's clothes and accessories may expose sharp point which can puncture a child.

Secondly, avoid selecting child toys which have these features, or if they have, make sure that your child use these kind of toys carefully:

• loud noises: toy caps and some noise-making guns can reach noise levels which can damage hearing. If their noise are above certain level, the toys should be labeled to indicate that they should not be fired close to the ear or should not be used indoors.
• propelled objects: projectiles-guided missiles and other flying toys can be turned into weapons. Darts and arrows should have protective tips to prevent injuries.

For parents with small childs or babies, avoid selecting toys which have long strings attached to them because of strangulation hazard.

Thirdly, be a label reader. Make sure that you only buy toys which are recommended for their age. Toys which are safe for older children may not be safe for the little ones. Additionally, look for these labels: 'non toxic' and/or 'washable/hygienic materials' for stuffed toys. If you decide to buy electric toys for your child, make sure that it has a UL (Underwriters Laboratories) seal which indicates that its electrical part has been inspected for safety.

Fourth, get up-to-date with toy recall. How can you do that ?

• Watch the news on TV
• Check periodically on the news section of search engine like google and type on toy recall.
• The easiest one is: suscribe to child toy news blog (our blog) via My Yahoo or your RSS reader.

Fifth, to ensure the child toy safety , teach your children proper use of toys by:

• explaining to the child of do and don'ts regarding the use of a particular toy.
• telling the child to put their toys away when they are broken. However, parents must also inspect for broken toys regularly so that they can immediately be thrown away or repaired.
• telling the child to care for their toys so that they do not get broken and to put toys away after playtime so that no one trips and falls on them.

Finally, nothing is better than adult supervision during playtime so that 'accidents which are about to happen' can be spotted promptly.

By following these child toy safety guidelines, we hope that injuries can be prevented and most importantly children can enjoy the fun and safe play times.

Adapted from: US Consumer Product Safety Commission and The American Toy Institute.

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