This is my third baby and first time I've had a climber. He's 16 months old. Earlier in the week he mastered climbing onto the dining chairs by himself. Yesterday I was making dinner, so I was facing the stove with my back to him. A minute later, literally, I turned around to find him happily sitting in the middle of the dining room table, holding a pair of my craft scissors in his hands, smiling as if he had won the lottery.
Obviously I won't be leaving things ON the table from now on.
We have a small house, so I can't just put the chairs elsewhere. There is no where else to put them. We eat at the table at least twice per day. I can't gate off the kitchen/dining area, as it is all one space and the opening is so wide that we'd need the gazillion dollar special size baby gates, which we can't afford.
When he tries climbing onto other dangerous things (like things with wheels) I just remind him to sit instead of stand...over and over again. When that doesn't work, I just remove the object he is trying to scale in hopes the phase will pass soon. I can't remove our dining room table.
So is there some magically obvious solution I am overlooking here?
Or am I just on hyper-watch until his fascination with climbing passes?
He's the first of them to be a super-climber. The other kids did normal kid climbing stuff, but he is downright scary. My brother was the same way when he was young (jumping off 20 and 30 foot cliffs because he could as he was older!) so maybe there is some genetic component.
My chairs spent a good few months shut up in the back room haha. The interest has seemed to wear off now. I keep our table pushed against the wall. Two of the chairs are 'trapped' behind there and we pull the whole set up out if we have company. The other two chairs he could technically still climb in but like I said the interest seems to be gone now. He'll occasionally climb on the table if DH is sitting there with his laptop but the rest of the time he's fine with them. Now if only I could figure out a way to get him to stop climbing my entertainment system I'd be happy lol.
My DD was a climber. I just pulled her off whatever she climbed on over and over and over until she got it. It took a while and drove me insane. but not as insane as kids climbing on the furniture
Originally Posted by lalemma
For those with wide spaces to block off, we were able to solve that particular problem with the North States play yard. It's ugly plastic, but it's relatively affordable (I think ours was about 60 bucks on Amazon) and we've been able to zig-zag it across the room and tuck the ends behind furniture. (If there's no furniture to be had, a friend of ours velcro'd hers to the wall with industrial velcro.)
It looks like the new has sort of worn off for him...*hopefully*
Over the last few days, he hasn't tried climbing on top of the table very often. When I've seen him attempt to climb from the chair onto the table, I say "Sit please." and he's been sitting. I say "Sit please." when he tries to stand in the bath, so figured I might as well try it w/the table issue. Seems to be more effective than removing him. When I take him off, he just seems determined to get back up there as quickly as possible.
Though I'm sure now that I've posted this he'll be back up there in no time.
Yes, I've got one of these little 16 month old climbers too. Its been a struggle for us being new parents and all, but we are still just taking him off the table when he climbs on it, letting him sit in the chair with feet forward, and teaching him to get down on his own. Also the slide....
is a very good idea. We have one in our playroom and he is so into it. Distraction also works to some degree. Right now bubbles are a good one. Oh and pushing those darn chairs in! We got rid of all the chairs he could move easily. The heavier the chair the better. I do let him climb in a few cupboards and slides at the park as much as possible.
You mean there are toddlers out there that AREN'T climbers? Who knew?!?
Both of mine are monkeys. I found DD *in* the kitchen cabinets more than once (she's mellowed out nicely as she gets older, fwiw), and DS was climbing before he was walking. At 12 months he climbed on furniture until he was hanging half on and half off the mantle (with DP playing spotter) and he plays the kitchen table and counters game many many times a day.
I'm 75% stay-at-arms-length and just go with it, and 25% redirection, plop on floor, or pop him into the Boba. And YES, we spend a lot of time outside.
I used to push the chairs in all the way and tie them to the table legs - if he couldn't get onto the seat of the chair he couldn't get onto the table. It was annoying to have to untie the chairs at meals, but not as annoying (not to mention terrifying) as going to emergency. Good luck!
Squirt them with water? Works with kitties, maybe toddlers too? Just joking.
With my little the only thing that worked was pick up and put down, over and over. It was a phase, it passed.
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