What do you say, how do you comfort your LO when they fall over?

[lellian]

DD is 7 months, and sitting super well on her own. She rolls over all the place. Gets in position to crawl, but not there yet. . .my question is what or how do you comfort your LO when they do tumble, or fall over? I don't want to overreact and therefore scare her into NOT trying new adventures, and I don't want to tell her "It's okay" if she really doesn't think it is.

My aunt was so over the top protective of her first born that he was constantly crying over the slightest thing, afraid, thinking that was the reaction he was supposed to have.

What do you do? Where is the middle line for little bumps and falls? I'm clearly not talking about not comforting her if something is seriously wrong, or she is obviously hurt. Hope I made that clear! I just want her to keep trying, stay adventurous, and not be afraid to try again if she tumbles. (My instinct is to overreact myself over any mishap so I'm trying to learn myself!)

Thanks!

[fruitfulmomma]

I usually just say something like 'uh-oh' and help them reposition themselves.

[MommyMad]

I'm learning myself with my 9 month old. He too gets a little scared & cries when he ends up on his tummy from a sitting position while reaching for a toy. If he's not hurt, I let him know that everything is OK. Once he realizes that everything is in fact OK & stops crying, I reposition him so he can try again.
This step has been really hard as I don't want to be overprotective either.

[c'est moi]

depends on the severity and her initial reaction

if i know she's absolutely fine, i make no notice or mention of it.
if she falls and i can tell she wants to cry, we'd say things like "boom" or "bonk" or "shake it off."
if she falls and it's worth her crying over, but it's actually not all that bad, i'll tell her to take a deep breath. once she takes a couple deep breaths, it usually distracts her enough to move on.
if deep breaths don't work, then she gets a hug and kiss and other comfort type measures.

she's 19 months now, but we've been like this since the beginning.

[november]

Nine times out of ten, I just distract her, laugh it off, and make no big deal out of it. If she crashes HARD and I know its bad (you can def tell the difference, kwim?) I just pick her up, hold her close, and talk to her and comfort her and its over with in a minute or so. My daughter seems to have no fear, lol! It takes quite a tumble/crash to make her cry so I just do my best to decipher what is and isnt a big deal (usually not).

[tzs]

kids look to you to see what their reaction should be (barring big falls.) it's really easy to see in older kids who wipe out....pause for a second to look at mom...and then cry or don't cry depending on what the mom does. if she acts like it's a big deal then so does the kid.

so like pp have said, i just say "oops!" or something of the sort. even for the big ones i try not not make a big deal of it. scoop her up and act like it's not a huge deal. somehow i've gotten in the habit of saying "did that hurt or were you scared?" but that comes from working with older toddlers....helps them express their feelings and usually it's more scared than hurt and difuses the situation to get them talking and back to playing.

[lellian]

Thanks for your replies, mamas! Always so good to hear/read what other mamas do. . .especially being new at this!

[scottishmommy]

When dd was a baby we would clap and say "down she goes". If she was really hurt we'd say "owie zowie" and hold her until she stopped crying.

[EdnaMarie]

I usually started with a cheerful, "o-pah!" or "oopsie-daisy!", smiling, and if they didn't get up themselves, I gave them a hand. However, if I heard a thud or saw, for example, their eye go into the corner of the coffee table, I am pretty sure my tone reflected my empathy for baby's situation. Kisses, nurses if necessary, and a cold compress on occasion...

However with my kids, as babies, they were never bothered by small falls. They only cried when their head crashed into something really hard. So I never had them "shake it off" because they did that any way.

Now that my older daughter is 3.5, she sometimes really seems to work it for drama, even things that she had never cried about as a baby or toddler, and that really do not seem they could hurt. I think it's the age. The Age of Drama. I do tell her to brush it off, "it's okay, babe", but I look at it first if she comes over. "No blood, no scrape, no bump, no bruise, looks like you're good!"

I, too, find it hard to balance (at least with older kids) my desire to be empathetic and my desire not to encourage pointless dramatics.

[Minxie]

When DS was very little, "Whoopsy-daisy!" Now that he's four, it's "Crash and burn!" Then the fire engines (me: "Whoo-ooo-ooo") come if we're on our bikes when it happens.

Also when he was very little, I started by asking questions:

"Are you okay?"

"Nooooo..."

"Do you need to go to hospital?"

"Nooo..."

"Did you crack the floor? Oh, look, I see a crack right there!"

More of a distraction to get him to calm down so I could see where he was injured. Now that he's older:

"Are you bleeding? Are of your bones poking out?"

It gets him THINKING which is what I want him to do in an emergency rather than panic.

[MusicianDad]

Most of the time he doesn't do anything but get back to what he was doing previously, so most of the time I do absolutely nothing.

If it's worthy of a whimper I ask if he wants a hug.

If it's worthy of crying then I usually get do to check him out and cuddle with him. That's usually all he needs to feel better.

[HappyMommy2]

For the little bumps, I say "wow, that was fun!" ... it went a long way and worked for us! My kids bounce back up now from pretty big ones too.

It is SO great not to have that whiny scream for every little fall!!

[omelette]

I say something along the lines of 'crash', 'bonk' or something along those lines in a happy sounding voice with a smile. If he needs help I will offer my hand to get back up to standing.
If it is a big hard fall with a head bonk I pick him up right away, I can't help myself.

[red and lulu]

i try not to say or do anything unless she looks at me since a lot of the time she just gets up and keeps going. if she looks at me i'll clap or just say "you fell down." if she gets upset i'll pick her up and give her a squeeze and then try to redirect her.

it might just be her personality but she has taken some real diggers and just kept trucking.

[coldandsleepy]

I'm in the wait and see camp. If he looks at me and starts crying, I pick him up... this is usually enough to calm him down unless he has bumped himself REALLY hard. (If picking him up isn't enough, we nurse. That has yet to fail, ever, heh.)

But probably 99% of the time, he falls down, bumps, and carries on whatever he's doing without needing any special boo-boo kitty from me.

[ErinYay]

At that stage, I could usually scoop her up during that 3-5 second calm before the storm and distract her and jolly her into a happy place without tears. We have all hardwood floors, so sometimes that head would hit pretty hard- if she cried, I *always* picked her up, kissed her head, and then distracted her (usually by bouncing- she loves to bounce.)

Now that she's cruising and standing alone, her falls are a lot less frequent, but 99% of the time, they're also a lot more rough. I always pick her up, soothe her in a calm-yet-happy voice, then put her back down when she's calm.

I can't imagine comforting a baby would lead to fear of exploration, provided you're not making a big deal over the "injury" itself. Letting babies know that when they fall, you'll ALWAYS comfort them, IMO, actually helps them want to explore more.

[texmati]

Originally Posted by ErinYay

At that stage, I could usually scoop her up during that 3-5 second calm before the storm and distract her and jolly her into a happy place without tears. We have all hardwood floors, so sometimes that head would hit pretty hard- if she cried, I *always* picked her up, kissed her head, and then distracted her (usually by bouncing- she loves to bounce.)

Now that she's cruising and standing alone, her falls are a lot less frequent, but 99% of the time, they're also a lot more rough. I always pick her up, soothe her in a calm-yet-happy voice, then put her back down when she's calm.

I can't imagine comforting a baby would lead to fear of exploration, provided you're not making a big deal over the "injury" itself. Letting babies know that when they fall, you'll ALWAYS comfort them, IMO, actually helps them want to explore more.

for small trips or falls while crawling; I just clap and say how funny! for bigger falls, where ds is crying, dh does this thing where he hits the floor. as in "the floor hurt you? bad floor!" DS thinks it's hilarious!!!

[dakotablue]

I have always done a commentary approach. "Oh you fell down!", "That was a big one" and smile. if he seems upset I will comment, "Oh that was scary." With a big hug of course, and sometimes nursing.

Dh does this and I hate it, "Your ok." I feel its telling the child what to feel and won't know if they hurt. I remember when I was 12 and my brother fell, he cried I told him it was ok (he was 2) and then 2 minutes later I turned around and he had a huge egg on his head. but he was happy...

[texaspeach]

if ds doesn't cry, I do nothing. I used to say, yeap, you fell down. if he does cry I usually say "you bumped your X - it hurts when you bump your X" and generally comfort him.