While it was important to try and prevent injuries, it was also important for teachers and parents to let kids learn from their mistakes, Ms Wheki said.
"You try and stop them before it escalates but you have to let them find things out for themselves as well.
"If you are going to run down a ramp 50 times after you have been told to slow down, you will probably fall over and hurt yourself but that's how you learn."
Strict safety regulations in centres and schools were a positive thing as long as kids were still able to learn, Ms Wheki said.
"At centres, there needs to be those regulations because we are looking after another person's child but I do think that in our home lives we tend to wrap our kids up in cotton wool.
"Kids need to be looked after and guided but then they also have to learn by falling over and hurting themselves."
Nationally, there were 106,322 ACC claims for children under-5 from January to November this year and 105,842 for the same period in 2013. The most common cause of injuries this year was loss of balance, with more than 40,000 claims, ACC said. Collisions were the second most common injury with more than 10,000 claims.
Plunket child safety adviser Sue Campbell said more could be done to prevent injuries in the under-5s. "A lot of these accidents, or a majority of them, are preventable and by that we mean that if the adult is aware of the age and stage that the child has developed mentally then they can make some changes to the home environment where the majority of these accidents happen," she said.
"We don't mean to stop children learning and developing, taking a bit of risk and having fun but just to stop the serious injuries from occurring.
"We are talking about things like preventing falls which is the key hospitalisation for children under-5.
"The range of injuries that we see are huge. Falls are the biggest one, followed by poisoning when children get access to household cleaners or medications.
"These things need to be kept out of reach and out of sight."
Families needed to be extra careful at Christmas time, she said.
" Adults may not be as careful with their kids as they normally are, due to so many other things happening, but it is important to always have an adult in charge of looking after the kids.
"If they are down by the water then take turns being in the water with them and having fun with them."
Top five causes of accidents among children under-5
- Loss of balance or personal control - 41,960 claims made.
- Collision or knocked over by an object - 11,269 claims made.
- Struck by a person or animal - 11,717 claims made.
- Tripping or stumbling - 6813 claims made.
- Slipping - 5631 claims made.
ACC claims made nationally for 2014, excluding December 1
