Backyard play equipment. Don't assume play equipment is safe simply because it's made for children. Supervise your child constantly; toddlers don't understand heights, their own limitations, or the pendulum effect of swings. Put infants and toddlers between the ages of 9 months and 3 years in specially designed bucket swings with sides, backs, and crotch and waist restraints. Look for smooth edges and surfaces with no ragged seams or corners, and no nooks or crannies that could trap a child's fingers. Don't allow toddlers to use a regular swing until their feet firmly touch the ground and you're sure they're mature and strong enough to hold on without losing their balance when leaning backward.

Doors leading outside. Install a latch high on the back door. Firmly lock sliding patio doors, and secure them with a bar in the track.

Lawn & garden equipment. Keep your tot indoors whenever you use a lawn mower, string trimmer, snow blower, power mower, hedge trimmer, or other outdoor equipment. It's too dangerous for your toddler to be your little helper. Pour fuel into this equipment while outdoors, not in the garage, where fumes could become a hazard or ignite.

Pools, ponds, and hot tubs. Completely enclose pools with a four-sided fence and a self-locking gate (required under most building codes and by many insurance companies before they'll issue a policy), as well as hot tubs. Drain and securely cover the pool during the off-season, and cover the hot tub when it's not in use. Pool alarms raise an alert if people enter the water when they're not supposed to, but some are prone to false alarms. And in our tests, only two of six alarms worked well. They were the Poolguard PGRM-AG for above-ground pools ($140) and the Poolguard PGRM-2 for in-ground pools ($225). Four were rated Not Acceptable. But even effective alarms are no substitute for fencing a pool and latching doors and gates, says Julie Gilchrist, M.D., an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Porch or deck railing. The spaces between the balusters on a railing or a porch or deck should be less than 3 inches. If they're wider than that (to check, see if you can pass a soda can through), install a railing guard made of mesh or plastic.

Swing sets. Make sure your backyard play set has a soft surface underneath it. It should have a layer of ground cover like wood chips, mulch, or pea gravel at least 9 inches deep extending from the equipment 6 feet in all directions. Lawn grass may seem cushy, but it's not.

Water containers and kiddie pools. Empty all outdoor containers of water--including 5-gallon and smaller buckets, insulated coolers, and wading pools--after use. They're a formidable hazard for small children who can drown in as little as an inch of water. Store them upside down, preferably indoors. If you have a large inflatable pool and can't dump the water every day, enclose it with a fence; it's the best protection against drowning, which is the second leading cause of accidental death in children under age 5. Simply covering a pool can be hazardous; children trying to move the cover have become entangled and drowned.