Liquitabs - why buy them?

aileth

I can't believe its now on BBC breakfast, talking about having to hand out locks to people and asking for redesign of boxes!!! How about put them in a cupboard out of reach??

I've just checked on our box and its covered in text and icons about keeping them out of reach of children. How much clearer does it need to be?

go_cat

It's simple really ... use child cupboard locks !

jellyhead

fluffnutter wrote: »

They're banging on about how much they look like sweets on the telly right now. My son's never seen a sweet in his life. They look inviting, sure, but so does everything when you're one. Lock them away. Problem solved. No need for a design change. Jeez.

It was soap powder that my nephew got a taste of ... it doesn't look like sweets! He was just, erm, adventurous. He's since been diagnosed with ADHD. It was a new kitchen and I hadn't taken the cupboard locks off the old cupboards, and this was the first time he'd been round since I'd had the new cupboards. He was two and a half, so I thought I could go to the toilet without taking him with me ... I didn't have a gate on the kitchen because, well my child was 6 and I'd taken it off.

I got gates after that because I wouldn't have wanted him to come into the kitchen if there was a pan of boiling water, or fall down my stairs.

My point is that most parents, most of us on here anyhow, keep such things away from children ... but perhaps if you have a visitor you might not have the safety gates, cupboard locks etc. in place if your own children are older or you don't have children.

My nephew only got a tiny taste because I was supervising him properly apart from my visit to the loo, but I wonder if I'd had concentrated liquitabs in that cupboard whether he'd have been seriously hurt in those few seconds.

Nowadays I still have the cupboard lock on even though my child is 8. I know my own child isn't going to eat my soap powder, but it gave me a fright when my nephew did.

I think opaque boxes is going a bit far - they really don't look like sweets anyhow, but perhaps a box that's harder to open might protect children like my nephew who have dozy aunts who think it's safe to go to the loo and leave them watching a cartoon.

Then again, I buy my paracetamol in packets from the supermarket nowadays. I don't know if there have been any accidental poisonings due to them not being in the childproof containers any more ... it's sort of taken for granted that parents are going to keep them away from children!

Saturnalia

Does no-one else have a family where all kids seem to be born with an engineer's brain? They can get past any child-proof cupboard or container in no time at all.

In fact, the locked cupboard, the child-proof container and something they can see but not reach holds more fascination than easily opened and reachable things do - those get left alone in favour of the challenge!

Padlocks and the back of the top shelves of high-up cupboards are the only way to keep them out.

(My sister woke up one morning and realised it was too quiet. Nephew had managed to escape his cot, unlatch the safety gate on his room and the one at the top of the stairs, get downstairs and get into the garden via the catflap. We'd seen him on numerous occasions try to follow the cat and dog through the flap but he'd never got his shoulders through it, but somehow this morning he sussed it out. Luckily the garden is fenced and the neighbours spotted the little devil there on his own and had kept an eye on him!

I think that lad was born cleverer than the lot of us put together!)

Kayalana99

jellyhead wrote: »

It was soap powder

My point is that most parents, most of us on here anyhow, keep such things away from children ... but perhaps if you have a visitor you might not have the safety gates, cupboard locks etc. in place if your own children are older or you don't have children.

My nephew only got a tiny taste because I was supervising him properly apart from my visit to the loo, but I wonder if I'd had concentrated liquitabs in that cupboard whether he'd have been seriously hurt in those few seconds.

Nowadays I still have the cupboard lock on even though my child is 8. I know my own child isn't going to eat my soap powder, but it gave me a fright when my nephew did.

See my thoughts on the topic in general - is that if it isn't these isnt it just going to be something else?

Kids eat anything they can find really...I mean soap powder or liquitabs.. saying they look like sweets is like saying the powder looks like suger.

If it wasnt soap powder...or the liquid tabs...if something is in the childs reach that shouldn't be it would just be that.. trying to say these are a safety hazard is same as telling us that bleach is...we KNOw kids aren't supposed to eat them thats why you child lock etc and for the parent that even by accident i.e by nipping to the loo lets their child have access to these things if its not these it will be something else!

No offense to the person I quoted as I know it isn't easy watching a child 24/7 (esp when their not your own) so don't judge you for it but I just think people are making a deal over nothing.

azzabazza

I never had cupboard locks when my children were toddlers. Haven't got them now I have grandchildren. When I say no about opening cupboards I mean no. However, I never left or leave now anything toxic in a cupboard when the children are visiting just in case.

Liquitabs are no different from any cleaning materials we have had over the years so not sure why they have been singled out.

DevilsAdvocate1

I think its probably a case of making parents aware that they are poisonous. I wonder if the issue is that parents don't always realize that things are dangerous.

One of my children managed to drink a bottle of Calpol when he was 3. It was kept in the top shelf of the most awkward, high up cupboards in my kitchen. He hadn't been feeling well, so I gave him the last of the old bottle. I left him lying down in the living room while I went to the downstairs toilet. When I came out, moments later, I saw some Calpol on the kitchen floor and the new bottle was being drunk by my son.

He had waited until I was in the toilet, had managed to climb up and get the new bottle down. He took it out of its packaging and managed to get the cap off, even though its supposed to be a child safety cap and I struggle getting them off.

Seeing how resourceful children can be, if a small change to packaging helped prevent an accident then I don't see what the issue is. Its not about making life more sterile, but about making life safer for toddlers who don't know any better.

On asking my son why he drank the Calpol, he told me that he did not feel any better after the medicine, so thought he would take more to make him better more quickly.

As I had seen him drinking it I was able to get him straight to A&E where he had to have a charcoal drink. Luckily, this did the job and he had no lasting damage. He is 12 now and still remembers the black drink.

OriolaW

I have no children and I don't use liquitabs

Wickwar

Darwin in action I think.

jellyhead

Kayalana99 wrote: »

See my thoughts on the topic in general - is that if it isn't these isnt it just going to be something else?

Kids eat anything they can find really...I mean soap powder or liquitabs.. saying they look like sweets is like saying the powder looks like suger.

If it wasnt soap powder...or the liquid tabs...if something is in the childs reach that shouldn't be it would just be that.. trying to say these are a safety hazard is same as telling us that bleach is...we KNOw kids aren't supposed to eat them thats why you child lock etc and for the parent that even by accident i.e by nipping to the loo lets their child have access to these things if its not these it will be something else!

No offense to the person I quoted as I know it isn't easy watching a child 24/7 (esp when their not your own) so don't judge you for it but I just think people are making a deal over nothing.

I think maybe the big deal is because these tablets are very concentrated so they can do a lot more damage than a gob full of soap powder?

We have childproof lids on bottles of bleach, but not on a bottle of fabric softener. Probably because the bleach is so much more poisonous.

Maybe lots of parents don't seem to be aware of just HOW poisonous the concentrated tabs are?

I know it was stupid of me to leave the child locks off my new cupboards, but in my defence my child was older.

If they give out cupboard locks to parents because they don't already have them and don't realise that they should, that's why they need to give them out.