13 month old DS is a climber! New territory for me!

[busymama77]

DS1 was never like this.  Maybe DS2 is showing off or is this what the younger siblings tend to do?  He climbs on everything. The stair case, in to cupboards, the kitchen chairs, the dining chairs, the couches, in to the tub and out...oh and he's learned out to open the sliding screen door that has no lock but has a tiny hole in the screen that he can get his little hand in to and slide the door open!!!  I re-direct as much as possible but is there anything else that I need to be doing by constantly saying "no" and re-directing him elsewhere when in 30 seconds he's back where he started??

[candelaria80]

We had/have this issue with our daughter as well, she was an early walker and even earlier climber!  Have you tried setting up safe climbing situations in your home?  We would take off all of the couch cushions and stack them for her to climb or place a chair in the center of the room and allow her to climb that (with us monitoring of course).  As she got a little older, we kind of just let her explore.   We did have a couple rules: no tables (mostly because I just am not fond of feet where we eat) and no bookcases (safety reason). 

We also enrolled her in Gymboree class if only to build her skills for safety reasons. 

Now she is 20 months and is the smallest kid at the park on the highest slide or climbing the tallest ladder.  It freaks people out a bit, but she is completely confident. 

[northerngirl]

Me too. Dd2 almost 14 months has been such a climber and also getting into much more stuff than dd1 ever did. We have a 2 step stool that dd1 uses to wash her hands at the kitchen sink and about a month ago dd2 was over by it and I looked away to put a dish in the cupboard and she was up on the 2 step just standing there, smiling. I about had a heart attack. She also b-lines it for the stairs every time the gate is left open. Today when I got home from work she was here then 2 seconds later she's 3/4 the way up the stairs with the TV remote in her hand.

Dd1 was never like this.