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?!

😂😂😂 Some judgy mum that is, ignore op, she’s batshit.

My kids not only crawled on carpets, bare tiles, grass and mud but have also eaten food that had fallen on the floor at a kids birthday party, cat food, sand (on a PUBLIC beach no less 😱) and rabbit droppings (he thought they were raisins).
Not sure how either of them survived to adulthood or weren’t taken away by social services.

I would suggest people don’t take medical advice from anyone who thinks you can catch HIV from saliva or faeces 🙄

My two boys would not have stayed on any kind of mat once they could crawl. They were literally everywhere and anywhere! Youngest could get up the stairs by 7months!

Carpet, stone floor, tiles, Lino, grass, sand and probably mud too! Both healthy and fine. I’ve never even thought about not letting them!

Totally LOL'd at that. I do wonder what world some people live in, I really do...

I have always bought nylon carpets because the propylene carpets do constantly put off microplastic particles that you breathe in and can never excrete from your body. Years later you can get COPD or cancer from the long term exposure.

I compare it to when I was a child breathing in the fumes of leaded petrol. It’s something that very very slowly poisons you so the effects don’t show up until adulthood.

Made me be chuckle!

I think some people must spend their day thinking of new ways to worry about everyday things

One respected doctor who is concerned about the increase in people with allergies suggested that spicy or 'risky' foods should be introduced earlier. The risk averse parenting which introduces a wider variety of foods at a deliberately later age may not be helping children to get used to spices and new vegetables.
He did reject the idea of deliberately introducing a lower standard of hygiene.

Our children have always been crawling on carpet, floorboards or grass were just normal.

Africa, Zimbabwe to be specific :)

A long time back now but yes my baby crawled on the carpet and on the hard kitchen floor. Plus we sometimes wear outdoor shoes in the house. He's grown up just fine.

What are you supposed to do when they crawl off the special rug? Are they only allowed to exist in a rug-sized prison with someone on 24/7 duty to put them back on the rug every time they crawl off it?

Jesus my babies crawled everywhere . I couldn't keep them to the confines of a mat. Restricting movement would be much worse than whatever is on the carpets.

That's the second stage of crawling after the carpet. Only in DD's case, it was the dog kibble - much to the horror of the dog who sat watching her and whimpering softly instead of alerting me to this terrible crime.

And something else I read recently that would have been so much more useful 20 years ago.
Crawling promotes co-ordination, it is better that one doesn't hurry them to walk. I am glad no one suggested one of those bounce devices for a doorway.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Scolded? Who by?

They need to learn to mind their own bloody business and keep their ludicrous ideas to themselves. They have no right to be scolding a fully-functioning adult.

It’s absolutely not possible to contract HIV through spit or saliva - even if a baby were to drink a bucket-full of it from someone who has been diagnosed with HIV (although that would clearly be pretty disgusting)

World AIDS Day is coming up soon so here’s a reminder how HIV can/cannot be passed on and other information.

https://www.tht.org.uk/hiv/myths-about-hiv#:~:text=A%20person%20living%20with%20HIV,urine%20or%20faeces%20(poo)

Of course not, the carpets are lava.

I have lived too long.

How, in the name of trifle, does anyone live with the anxiety proliferation that exists in grown humans these days?

I believe we could be great friends in real life.

@Vitriolinsanity 😁😁😁

But you do have a brilliant sense of humour! That really made me laugh.

@Zimunya funny but benignly neglectful, I'll take it 👌👌

I think if carpet fibres were so bad there would surely be warnings up in hospitals etc not to let your babies roll/crawl on carpets ?