Learning to crawl on hard floors?

[ScootchsMom]

Poor DS is trying so hard to crawl but he keeps flopping over and hitting his head! We only have an area rug in the living room, the rest of the house is hard floors. Any suggestions on keeping him from doing some serious damage to his poor head? He hit his head 4 times today

[millifiori]

I'm not sure but will be watching for replies and can sympathize with you. We also only have an area rug in the living room and almost the rest of the house is tile floors. DD is on the verge of crawling and I'd love to hear some good advice as well!

[LVale]

When my first son was little, (he is 32 now), we only had tile floors. Did he bump his head, yeap! sore scraped knees, yeap. Oh he started crawling at 4 mths. By the time he started walking was 6 mths. I have pics. and eyewitnesses to prove it. I really think he disliked the tile floors, made him mad, said crawling not is for me, and started walking. What do you think Native Americans and Pioneers did with their little ones? Children adapt, and cope with their living conditions. So no worries. Just let your little one go, no rubber mats, or knee guards, just go with the natural flow.

[heinz28]

My nearly 10-month old had the same problem but it worked out. When she first started moving, I watched her a lot but she mainly low-crawled so there was no real risk of hitting her head. Although, that first week of mobility, you have to watch how the babe is turning over --to catch their head if they're flipping over from carpet to wood floor.

I also put some gray masking tape strips on her clothes, at the knee area, when she kept slipping as she tried to get her trunk up. I only needed to do it for a few days though -- her strength improved fairly quickly and now she loves crawling on the wood more than the carpet.

[moonmom08]

I threw down some extra blankets on the floor for DD, but when she actually started crawling and pulling up 6-7 mos., there just wasn't enough padding in the house! This may sound weird, but you kind of get used to the head-bonking...it gets a lot more frequent before it gets better

[nukuspot]

I have wood floors and a late crawler (dd will be 8 months tomorrow and not crawling yet.) So I don't know if there can be that causal connection between early mobility and wood floors!

[newmomrose]

Our house is the same - wood floors with a rug in the living room. Our baby crawled at 7 months, and at 9 months is cruising, close to walking. She has had many head-bonks and some bruised knees, but she's not letting it slow her down! When she was first crawling I was very watchful of her and would position her on the rug or on blankets, but she got more control pretty quickly, and now mostly only hits her head when she's getting tired.

So no advice, really, just saying it's normal and your LO won't do any damage with those slips, I don't think.

[Auraji]

In Dominican Republic were I was born and grew up, tile floors are the norm and we're all fine

[JessieBird]

I had the same problem when DS was learning to crawl. I ran out and bought area rugs for anywhere in the house that I could fit one. I quickly realized though that no matter how I tried to keep him on a carpet, he preferred to be on the hard (and cold!) ceramic tile in the kitchen. Second choice was the hardwood in the rest of the house. He bumped his head a lot in the beginning but it was never serious and it is incredible how quickly they gain their strength - your babe won't be falling over for long! My DS is a master crawler now still avoids carpets.

[seafox]

DS is crawling now, with a bit of flopping, and we have a carpet we try to keep him on but he usually travels beyond it onto the hard wood. He actually doesn't ever hit his head crawling, its the pulling up and standing that does that (I usually sit behind him as he 'practices' but he falls oddly sometimes and I miss him! I try and put pillows everywhere)

But how is he conking his head w/ crawling attempts? Is it because accidentally rolling over? I think DS had a small stage where he would shoonk forward with his head down and get crooked and roll over - but I think that was always on our carpet so I guess I'm not sure how badly he conked his head, he never seemed to hit it when doing that.

I think a good plush area rug works if he's doing that since I'm guessing he's not SO mobile that he'd get off of it too fast. DS now can travel quickly off our rug, but he's also not conking anything since he's pretty good at the crawl.

[motherbirth]

We have hardwood floors, and I was worried at first too, but he got over it quickly and has had no problems.

[ScootchsMom]

Originally Posted by seafox

But how is he conking his head w/ crawling attempts? Is it because accidentally rolling over? I think DS had a small stage where he would shoonk forward with his head down and get crooked and roll over - but I think that was always on our carpet so I guess I'm not sure how badly he conked his head, he never seemed to hit it when doing that.

He hits his head in two ways - he'll be sitting up, look at someone walking by him and fall over backwards or he tries to crawl, moves both arms at the same time and smashes face first into the floor. Oh and actually there is a third way, he gets up on hands and knees, looses his balance and falls sideways. He does manage to get around by scooting on his tush, so keeping him on the rug doesn't work. He's getting better, he only fell 2 times today.