Baby standing, hardwood fllors, sliding furniture « Back to Group Discussions

[Ree Tee]

Hey Mamas, just curious how you handle baby's need to climb up on everything, particularly if you've got hardwood floors. I basically stand close by and let bebe try to climb more stable pieces of furniture...

[cat13]

LOL, I think River is such a brute that falling doesn't even faze him anymore. He went through a falling progression of falling straight backwards on his back (we called it "timber" like a tree falling) to falling really hard on his butt (cloth diapers are great for this) to a controlled fall on his butt to squatting down. I swear that he was bonking his head up to a dozen times a day, but there wasn't really much I could do, and now he rarely hits his head.

I did have to stop putting socks on him because they take away his grip and he slides all over.

As for climbing, I'm not sure. He is *almost* able to climb onto the futon couch and coffee table on his own. For now, he can get up there if he has a little boost, like if I'm sitting on the floor, he'll use my leg/thigh as a boost. He has absolutely no sense of how to get down properly and still goes head first, so I'm trying to teach him how to scoot down feet-first, but we've been working on that since about 5 1/2 months with no progress. That's almost half his life, you'd think he would have figured it out by now?
 

[Ree Tee]

Wow, River is a toughie. If Sam falls, he'll cry. I do my best to stand close by and make sure that doesn't happen, but these days he's climbing on everything! I am thankful for the cloth diaper cushion. Ha!

I'm also trying to figure how I can guide him. Occasionally it seems like he gets what I'm saying, but most of the time I'm not so sure.

[Beckily]

I'm so glad we have carpet!!

Charlie rarely cries when he falls anymore. He can't climb anything yet but he's finally learned to crawl over obstacles (like a leg)

[Ree Tee]

Typically I love hardwood, but today I dream of carpet...nice, fluffy carpets with lots of padding beneath them...

[cat13]

Or a completely padded room! 

[HawaiianBlesing]

We have all hardwood as well and Rafe does really well with it even with socks on (they have the grippy stuff on the bottom).  He has to hit his head really hard in order to cry so we rarely have tears here.  He's not like River though--no falling trees.  He's always managed to squat or just plop down on his bottom.  He's working on being able to climb up on the couch and he is close.  He's great at getting off when we are there, he'll turn around and get down.  He's so proud of himself when he does it.  Still working on the bed as it's a bit higher and the "drop" if further. 

The thing we have to monitor for is the bar stools.  They are a smaller variety so he likes to push them around and walk with them but occasionally he will pull on them and I don't want it to topple over onto him so we monitor closely around that.  Other than that, it's pretty much trial and error....that's how he learns.  He loves to navigate under things like the chairs with rails on them.  He'll crawl in under the rail and then climb out over the rail.  He's kind of a confined space kind of kid...likes to get in them and work his way out of them which is good because his dad is claustrophobic.

Cloth diapes are great for soft landings.  He's not so fond of the bare bottomed ones unless he's in the grass.  He doesn't have much natural padding back there.