Do you let babies crawl on carpets?!

[Jimmyjammymammy]

I've just been scolded for being irresponsible for letting my baby crawl on a polypropylene rug. Apparently full of PFAS and most likely flame retardants and i should be using a baby mat.

My mind is blown by this. I'm a very anxious person and take precautions (probably too many) but I feel this is a bit extreme. Surely most babies crawl on a carpet? Do people actually just buy wool rugs or put baby mats down specifically to avoid a baby being exposed to potential toxins?

So, I'm very curious, AIBU to let a baby crawl on a carpet?!

Carpet! Won’t someone think of the children.

No, I expected my babies to learn to hover a safe distance above the ground…

Your friend is absolutely batshit. Has she thought about fire retardants in furniture? Does she suspend the baby above the sofa?

In all seriousness, some people are really really bad at risk assessment and numbers. So they read that X increases the chances of Y and immediately think they shouldn't do X any more, not realising that P, Q and R that they do instead also have risks for Y or something else.

Or that X means death is five times likelier - not realising that means from 1 in a million to 5 in a million.

You have to trust your gut sometimes.

My kids both crawled on carpets. If anything i prefer a carpet as if they fall over or something it's a softer landing!

On what basis?

How would you contain them to a rug/ mat/ throw?

Once mine were moving they were off, up the stairs, in every room. No chance of keeping them in small area.

Whoever said this to you has either lost the plot completely or must find life exceedingly difficult with such high levels of anxiety. How do they function in the world?!!

My dad was a carpet fitter so I know exactly how carpet fibres fuck with lungs ok. Not saying anyone's wrong to let their baby crawl on carpet but I just couldn't do it

I thought you said "Apparently full of PEAS"!
Yes I did let my children crawl on carpets and (gasp) sit back while they then put their hands in their mouths (unless they had found an old chip that had been under the sofa for a few years).

I'm sure there was the odd time I gave their hands a wash afterwards, but mostly I let them get on with it.

And there was me so chuffed that I'd managed to save up enough money to have a carpet professionally fitted in the living room of my flat so that DD could learn to crawl without faceplanting into bare concrete (and be vaguely warm for the process).

Mums can never be allowed to feel like they're good enough, can they?

Yes I did but we are a shoes off at the door household. The carpet materials never crossed my mind.

I would say fibres from a throw are a lot more problematic than carpet. Also it's loose so more slippery and risk of falling 🤨

My children have even crawled on the carpet in shoes on households and lived to tell the tale, as did I.

Risk of falling on the floor where they already are? He's 2 years old now so obviously didn't have a major crawling accident 🙄

😂

If someone said this to me I would have to ask 'please tell me how I explain it to my baby so they understand?' not possible? Then they can crawl where they want

I actually saw a baby doing this last week.

Makes you wonder how any of us reached adulthood with all these things that were never a problem, now being a problem.

Well you can put them in the kitchen and watch them crawl across the fibre free tiles on their way to eat the cat food

So on a daily basis removing old carpets and cutting and laying new ones. Do you see that that might be a bit different?

If the carpet is apparently that dangerous why have it in your babies vicinity in the first place?

Exactly, I don't think a baby crawling is going to kick up anywhere near the fibre levels a carpet fitter would be dealing with.

Of course I do but that was just the way I did it.

This made me laugh.

SIL problem?

All babies crawl on all types of surfaces and then put fingers in their mouths. If food is dropped on the floor we won’t allow them to eat it.