Tips For Choosing Kid Friendly Furniture

A growing family can take its toll on your home, more specifically, on your furniture and especially your couch! As children are introduced into your home, there are changes that need to be made to keep your home child friendly. Many growing families install child gates on the stairs, child locks on cabinets and drawers and even add rugs to help protect a crawling baby’s knees. Most often their choice in furniture is overlooked until it is too late. When your child reaches the age where they start exploring the home, you may want to consider these tips on choosing kid friendly furniture and couches.

What Makes The Best Couches For Kids?

You can ask any family member who has children and they will tell you the one piece of furniture that is always a victim of a growing child is the sofa. Before having children, you chose your sofa or sectional based on your taste. This often means it is not kid friendly. When it comes to kid friendly couches, you need to consider fabric type, fabric treatments, fabric color, and couch shape.

Choosing a kid friendly sofa, chair or chaise can keep your furniture looking great through the “dangerous” younger years of your child. During this time they are often lacking in the judgement and hand eye coordination to prevent spilling, drawing, and wiping things all over your sofa!

The Best Couch Material For Kids

It is inevitable that your furniture will be subject to harsh treatment from kids. This can include spit-up, spills, crayons, and even shoes being worn on your couch. These are the most common causes for furniture damage. This makes it highly important to choose spill and tear resistant upholstery.

Some of the best couch materials for kids include:

• Leather: Leather has been a popular choice for many families. Leather tends to be spill resistant and harder to rip than cotton fabrics. Therefore, most leather furniture will stay looking great for years. I will swear by our black leather recling sofa. It has held up without any problems for many years.
• Sensuede: Sensuede is a man-made fabric made from recycled fibers. It is easy to clean, supple, and comfortable.
• Crypton: Crypton is an extremely stain resistant fabric that was originally intended for hospitals, restaurants, and public areas. Recently interior designers have brought this fabric into homes for use where the stain resistant and antibacterial properties of the fabric would be useful.
• Microfiber: The tight -knit weave of microfiber creates an upholstery that is highly stain resistant while offering a comfortable seating area.

Additionally, many furniture stores offer a stain resistant treatment for their furniture and it is totally worth it. There are some DIY stain resistant treatments too if you want to stick with the furniture you already have.

Rounded Furniture Offers Child Safety

In addition to selecting the best couch material for kids and making sure it has a stain treatment, you may also want to consider the shape of the couch. Most couches are pretty soft and kid friendly. However, if your couch has metal or wood parts exposed beware that they could be a safety hazard.

A report published in 2004 by the National SAFE KIDS Campaign showed that 80% of fall related injuries among children ages 4 and under occur in the home. Many of these falls include hurting themselves on furniture.

Be sure that any wood or metal that is exposed does not have sharp corners. If you have coffee table in front of your couch, children have an uncanny ability to find one of the 4 corners of a coffee table when they fall. This is why it is suggested to consider a rounded edges without sharp corners for truly kid friendly furniture. This will help reduce the risk of injury if your child falls and bumps their head on the furniture.

If you choose to keep your furniture that has sharp corners, there are child safe rubber corner cushions. These are easy to install without damaging your furniture and can be removed when the child has grown. They are a cheap alternative to purchasing a new table and have self-adhesive pads so no tools are required.

Conclusion

Another bonus tip while you are selecting kid friendly furniture is to consider the floors. If you are preparing your irregular shaped living room for your child, consider area rugs. These help to protect installed carpeting or your beautiful hardwood floors. This will also help protect your child from falling on the floor and reduce injuries. If you have a crawling infant, it will also offer a soft surface for protecting their knees.

As your family changes, your furniture choices should do the same. If you want to offer a kid friendly couches while keeping your home reflective of your style, look into the many different options I suggested. The right fabrics and stain resistant treatments go along way. Rounded edges on furniture makes it so much safer for children.

Keeping your child and furniture safe should go hand in hand. Do you have any suggestion on what makes the best couch for kids?

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