Toddler Climbing

Hello V.,
My son that is now almost 6 has been in a climbing stage since the day he could walk. No matter how much you child proof your house they will find something to jump off and hurt themselves. The saying, Boys will be boys is so true!!!!! At the beginning of the school year my son thought he was Superman and jumped off the airhockey table and broke his wrist. In the ER, all the ER Doc. could do is laugh because this was the 3rd boy he saw in that day that broke an arm jumping off of something. All I can say is watch them as much as you can but accidents happen. This is just the beginning!!!! Mine loves to climb trees and swing like a monkey from the branches. Good Luck and I bless you cuz you have 2 of them at the same age:-)

Not sure how much help this will be, but here's how I tried to deal with this when my daughter started climbling after she climbed up the back of a ladder back chair which naturally lead to the top-heavy affect. (Can you say "Oh my Gosh!")
I laid all the ladder back chairs on their sides against walls. If I didn't have room (like my bedroom), I moved the chair to a less appealing or safer area -- like right next to the bed -- and allowed her to discover that climbing spot (I made sure to also show her how to "climb" off.) I even would make "stepstones" more difficult to access easily.
Basically, I tried to make the temptations more difficult to achieve and have a safer spot or two for her to discover so she could feel like she got away with something. Her favorite was initially using a stool to climb onto the couch before she discovered the chair by the bed. Yep, it was a pain re-organizing the house & the inconvienance of how things looked but much better than re-experiencing the panic. I also tried a bit of the "out of sight, out of mind" by tucking items of interest further back on shelves.
I just prayed the spills would never be too serious. I still have the picture of a blur of pink coming kinda my way when my daughter choose to leap at me without warining. Yes, I caught her & have no idea how.
LOL. I know this isn't great advice and I'm sure others may have some better ideas.

I have two climbers, luckily they survived toddlerhood! My advice at this point is that you need to watch your son at all times. He's too little right now to understand that he can get hurt. If you have to leave the room, make sure you have a little safe area to put him into. This can be a playpen, or a little gated off area where there's nothing to climb on. Your son will fall, mine did and still do. It's all part of having adventurous boys!

LOL - I am SOOOO with you on this issue! Our 19 m old Anna Grace LOVES to climb too!

People come into our home and find all of our dinning room and breakfast room chairs laying on the floor! That is th eonly thing I have found that works!

Good Luck!

Well, you can either put them in a playpen, or get one of those circular gates, I had one of those, it worked great (until he was able to climb out of that), and then, we just had to accept the fact, that kids climb, and they fall, my sone has fallen of our couch (several times), he's rolled off the bed (several times) and everytime, he's been fine, a few tears and a hug and kiss and he was fine. As much as we try our best to protect them, we can't do it all the time, and sometimes there are bumps and brusies, as my motto goes "That way they learn not to do it again". And my son has learned to be a lot more careful! ;-)
Good luck with the bumps and brusies!!

T.

Hi V.,

I don't have a lot of advice except to say "when" something does happen, don't blame yourself. Try as you might, there is only so much you can do. DS#2 got his first set of stitches at 14 months. He climbed up 2 stairs and jumped off. We were right there and couldn't catch him. By the time he was 3, he had 3 sets of stitches. He's 4 now and (knock on wood) more careful about his climbing. I guess it's a boy thing....some of them are daredevils!

Good luck!

Hey i am with you on that one i have a 20 month old thats in the climbing stage.. I havent figured anything out about this yet just her big sister helps i went out of the room but lay clothes on my bed and came back and found her on top of the table she pushes chairs to where she has to go and everything SO im stuck as well with what to do so i cant tell you anything but if you hear of anything good let me know please im worried she will get really hurt but i cant always be at her side 24/7

Hello. My advice is to continue to child proof ur house. My daughter is going through this stage too and i just make sure that all dangous things are out of the way including things she can put in her mouth and things she can fall and get hurt on. And have band-aids on had with plenty of kisses :)