We live in southeastern Virginia surrounded by water. I love being near the water-most of the time! When hurricane season begins, I start to worry a little bit about living near the coast I admit! I also worry a little bit now that we have a young child who is walking and exploring the world around him.

Where I grew up, we had lots of water around our property. Our neighbor had a large pond, a creek divided our property into two, and our water supply came from a spring house. My mother spoke often about her water based fears, but it didn’t really occur to me as a kid that she had valid concerns.

I didn’t have to deal with water worries until I had my son. Before then, we lived inland in another state and we didn’t have a pool in the backyard. We didn’t have a pond, a spring house, or a creek either.

Things have changed. Not only do we live near the water, but we have a pool and a pond in the backyard. I understand my mother’s water worries now.

When our son began crawling, I started worrying about safety issues, like all parents do. We began to baby proof the house and continued as our son’s world expanded. Our son is walking like a champ now and it is summer time. His older siblings are in and out of the house and spending a lot of time in the pool. I began to ponder how I could prevent a water accident, but yet allow the older children access between the pool and the house. It was time to baby proof the yard too.

We researched infant swimming lessons which help your child to learn about water safety and basic survival skills if they would happen to fall into a pool. We haven’t enrolled him yet, but I intend to do so.

I created a set of barriers between the pool and the house. We keep our gates locked to the yard because of safety concerns as we have a neighborhood full of small children. The only way to access the pool is through the laundry room/office in the house.

In the hallway leading to the house door which leads to the pool, we set up several baby gates for safety. The older children can step over the gates, but my son can’t.

We put a baby safety handle on the door that leads out to the pool. My son can’t turn the handle, but the older children can. We also put a double lock on the door so at night, I can check to make sure that both locks are locked for safety.

We put in a new pet door and door as we had a door for our Labrador Retriever to go in and out into the yard. While the door was a great thing for the dog, it was also big enough for our son to crawl through.

We have steps that lead up to the pool and we are currently building a deck and fence around our above ground pool. The fence will be gated for additional safety.

Are you keeping outdoor hazards in mind when you baby proof your property? What are some things that you have done to keep your child safe during the summer season?