Ask:
The 14 month old I keep fulltime has discovered he can climb. ANYTHING. We are constantly pulling him down off the dining room table, and last week, he figured out that he could push a chair to get on the COUNTER!! Any ideas besides handcuffs?!?!
Answer:
Do you have a gated (baby gates) area in your home where you can give him time-out alone when he disobeys? You have to be consistant...even though he is young, eventually he will get it.
Answer:
Oh yeah, I have one, and I hate to tell you but you CAN'T get them to stop!!! Mine is 18 months and he will climb anything and everything. This child will turn a laundry basket over sideways to use it as a step. He lives to climb. It makes me crazy! I haven't been able to get him to stop and he has been doing this for months now. He can get up on tables and he climbs into chairs and keeps going until he is on the back of them. Ugh! I have just embraced it since I can't fight it. Now I set up obstacle courses for him to climb. Just now I put out a little step stool (2 steps and very sturdy with a handle) next to the loveseat in my room and he is climbing from the loveseat to the bed and back to the loveseat and back to the bed, etc. I do this all the time. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It makes him so happy. I considered buying an indoor climby thing but decided he wouldn't like it for long and we would all be tripping over it, so we just use stuff around the house now. Benches, pillows, boxes, whatever is around. I just watch him carefully. The good news is that he has gotten so much better about not falling! His balance is quite impressive. The one place I absolutely won't allow the climbing is in the kitchen because he could really get hurt. It took about a month of major redirecting, but he doesn't even try now. He climbs into the chairs at the kitchen table and announces "SIT!" and he plops his little booty down and smiles at me.
Answer:
I agree with Maggie. I went to the bathroom one day and while I was gone my then 15 month old climbed the kitchen drawers like steps, got on the counter, then the refrigerator via the microwave (all in about two minutes). Talk about a heart attack!!!
So instead of trying to stop him, I help him so that he knows what he can and cannot do. Our new house (moved in when he was two) has lots of trees and he's climbed these trees since day one...first with help and now he's eight and climbs up by himself--he likes to hide in the trees and talk to the neighbors walking by (since they can't see him at first it's a real Hoot!)
I think it's just a matter of learning what is safe--if I prevented my son from climbing, he'd just get in trouble with it when my back was turned, so at least I know that I've taught him safety rules.
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My 18 month old is a climber and NOTHING an get this kid to stop. Actually, every once in a while she falls off something and that stops her for a few hours....
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Yep, I had a few like that too!! You just gotta watch their every move! Of course I can't complain, my mom likes to tell the story of when she learned I could climb. I was about a year old and she found me sitting in the middle of the kitchen table with both hands in a freshly frosted cake!!!
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I wish I could offer you some suggestions, but I don't have any. I have raised one.
My DD was a climber. She started crawling out of her crib at 18 months and refused to sleep in it. She could get on the kitchen table even if I layed the chairs down and shoved them under the table. She would wait till my back up turned and climb up anyway. I use to call her Houdini Baby. She could do things I couldn't even think of. She survived and so did I.
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The only thing I found to stop mine was a trip to the Er, and MRI and a concussion! And she was back on the table the next day. This was also during her stripping phase. I swear she would stand on the kitchen table and strip!
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So far neither of mine have been climbers. But my nephew was and still is. Nothing would stop that boy either. When he was two he climbed the ladder to follow his dad onto the roof. He'd climb the shelving unit in the laundry room at night and fall asleep on there or on the washer/dryer. If his parents put up a gate or baby proofing locks and door knob covers he found a way around them in 2 seconds.
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Oh goodness, at least I'm not alone! Mine climbs anything that's higher than he is but stairs are his favorite. He just learned to do it with no hands. We've been very firm and consistent with him and he has learned what he is allowed to climb on and what is forbidden. It helps that our kitchen chairs make a really loud sound when he pulls them out. Although one time, I found him in the middle of the kitchen table with a peach in one hand an apple in the other and a bite out of every piece of fruit in the fruit bowl! Tumbles don't slow him down either and he's gotten some pretty big bumps and scrapes.