🛡️ Child safety · 0–6 years

🧠 Essential reflexes: sleep, shaking & outdoors

Consistent habits help reduce everyday risks. Agree on them with your partner, relatives and anyone else caring for your child.

Prepare together

Save Nigeria's emergency number, 112, and your child's clinic and maternity team's contacts. Emergency coverage and arrival times vary, so arrange backup transport. Keep your address accessible to caregivers.
Take professional infant and child first-aid training.

1. Make every sleep safer
Put baby on their back on a flat, firm mattress in their own clear cot or bassinet, in your room for at least six months. Use a fitted sheet only: no pillows, blankets, toys or bumpers, and no hats indoors. Avoid overheating and smoke exposure. Bedsharing, sofas and armchairs are not safe infant sleep spaces.
2. Never shake a baby
If crying overwhelms you, put baby on their back in their safe cot and take a brief break, checking back regularly. Ask another trusted adult to take over. Never shake, hit or roughly bounce a baby.
3. Protect fingers and support play
Secure doors against slamming and check sharp furniture edges. Offer tummy time only while baby is awake and directly supervised.
4. Supervise around animals
Stay close and actively supervise children around pets, even familiar ones. Give animals a separate place to retreat.
5. Travel safely
Use a correctly installed child car seat suited to your child's size and its instructions. Use rear-facing travel within the seat's limits. Unload on the pavement side where possible, and never leave a child alone in a vehicle.
6. Recognise urgent illness
A baby under three months with a temperature of 38°C or higher needs urgent medical assessment. Call 112 for breathing difficulty, blue colour, floppiness or unresponsiveness.

A local detail, or your own experience with this guide? Write to the team

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