Store medicines safely

Young children are energetic, unstoppable explorers. Everything within reach is a potential treasure—a visitor’s purse, a tube of diaper cream, a medicine bottle on a nightstand. Find out which safe storage tips you already follow and which new ones you may want to try.

Smart medicine storage tips

Here are ways to help ensure your kids don’t get their hands on medicines:

•  Put all medicines, including your own, up and away and out of sight.  Make sure that all medicines, including vitamins and adult medicines, are stored out of reach and out of sight of children.

•  Consider places where kids get into medicine.  Kids get into medication in all sorts of places, like in purses and nightstands. Place purses and bags in high locations, and avoid leaving medicines on a nightstand or dresser.

•  Consider products you might not think about as medicines.  Most parents know to store medicine up and away – or at least the products they consider to be medicine. But they don’t always think about products such as diaper rash remedies, eye drops or hand sanitizer, which may not seem like medicines but actually are.

•  Close your medicine caps tightly after each use.  Choose child-resistant caps for medicine bottles when you can. And remember, child-resistant does not mean childproof. So make sure you close the container tightly after each use and put the medicine away.

•  Be alert to visitors’ medicine.  Well-meaning visitors may not be thinking about the medicines they have brought with them. When you have guests in your home, offer to put purses, bags and coats out of reach of children to protect their property from a curious child.

•  Put medicine away after every use.  Even if you’ll need another dose in a few hours, resist the urge to keep the medicine handy. Put it up and away after each dose.