Baby climbs everything

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Just posting here for traffic for quick responses.

My sons a complete monkey, not even a year old yet, walking and climbing everything. Doesn't stay still for a second.

We have a low coffee table and he climbs on it constantly which I'm worried could be dangerous if he falls off. It's got drawers (now emptied) which he opens and tries to stand in too. He's too young to understand/doesn't listen when I teach him not to yet. I'm wondering whether to get rid of it and get a new one he can't climb onto, but also wonder if it's normal to just buy new furniture because your baby climbs on it. I like the living room as it is so would prefer not to have to, but obviously my priority is making sure he stays safe.

My eldest wasn't a climber so never had this issue so not sure best way to deal with it.

Yabu - silly to buy new furniture for this reason

Yanbu - get a new one

Yes, completely normal.

Normal that he's climbing on it or normal to buy a new one?

If it makes your life easier just replace it. I had a climber and I even ended up taking away the bar stools at one point because he would climb up on them and walk across the kitchen island when he was 2.

It’s very stressful trying to keep an eye on a child like this especially if you have other children. It’s worth making the house as safe as possible.

Yes this is one of the main reasons, it's really stressful pulling him off everything. Also means we can't leave any drinks etc on it anymore and he's always trying to pull the lamp down.

Mine all went through phases like this. If you have the space to do so, what I did was remove it for a short time, and then put it back when they were a little bigger. It really is a short stage in the scheme of things.

That's why I'm not to keen to just get a new one - I know it won't last long (hopefully) but in the mean time it just adds to the stress of things.

I'd just remove it temporarily, and any lamps, shelves etc that he could pull down on himself. My DS1 was a climber (and walking at 9 m!) at it was a nightmare. Stairgates didn't even slow him down, and at 2 he managed to climb onto the toilet systern where I had a high shelf above for all the dangerous things I didn't want him to access..I was hanging laundry on the landing but he was THAT quick!
We did have a lot of visits to minor injuries when he was a kid...(and he still is a physical risk taker as an adult!)

Some grow out of it... some not so much!

Your post gave me flashbacks to my brother when he was tiny, OP. He climbed well before he could walk, and would climb anything. As fast as one climbable thing was moved to a safe place, he'd find another.

We lived in a third floor flat, and one day he managed to climb up onto a window ledge, where he promptly opened the window and leaned out. Luckily, they had metal frames and my DF was able to drill a hole and put a screw in the frames to stop the handles moving. All the dining chairs had to be shut in my bedroom during the day, which was bolted from the outside when unoccupied, as he would move them around and climb on them. And he climbed up a G-Plan sideboard, with cupboards above, which toppled over, and all the glasses that were kept in it got smashed. Even putting the little sod in a play pen didn't stop him, he just rocked it until it tipped over and he could crawl out. Our DM just had to be eternally vigilant.

He grew out of it after a couple of years, thankfully, but was still inclined to do daft and dangerous things well into adulthood. He was occasionally referred to as "Monkey Boy" by the DPs right up until they died though!

It's not a short phase, ime...

My dd started walking and climbing at 9/10 months. She's almost 15 months now and still climbs everything. We have to keep the dining chairs up on the table when we're not eating, like we live in a restaurant, because otherwise she uses them to climb onto the table.

Our coffee table is turned over, along with our side tables, and we've emptied book shelves and removed them.

Good luck!

My youngest was always climbing everything, and then bloody jumping off things backwards!

Multiple A & E attendences for stitches and head injuries and a couple of broken bones over the 2-3 yrs she was a 'climber'.

She worked out (at approx 10mths old) that if she opened the kitchen drawers, she cloud use them as a ladder to get onto the counter and into the wall cupboards.

She climbed over stairgates at 1yr old, and was able to push dining chairs over to wherever she wanted to climb to!

I even had to put a big potty into her bedroom overnight and lock her (hook & eye lock only) in her bedroom overnight after the time she climbed over the top and bottom stairgates, turned all the gas hob rings on and emptied a whole sack full of dry dog food into every pot, pan and colander we possessed and then pushed a chair over to the front door to reach the keys hanging there and unlocked the front door!

Once, at nursery, she managed to get into the kitchen over the stairgate and got the keys for the nursery cupboards, unlocked the cupboard for the paints, and was caught handing out paint to the other kids.

Thankfully, she did eventually outgrow the climbing 'phase', though she still decided to take up every, single, bloody dangerous sport she could find, Trampolining, ice skating, climbing walls, horse riding, gymnastics etc.
She now teaches one of these dangerous sports for a living.

Your DC is gonna be who they're gonna be, regardless of what you do, so just get used to trying your best to limit the danger they expose themselves to while you can, and if you can find a class that at least teaches them to do dangerous stuff more safely, get DC enrolled asap.

PS

Make sure you secure every climbable piece of furniture to the wall e.g bookcases, units, freestanding shelves etc so DC cannot pull them down on themselves when they climb them

Once, at nursery, she managed to get into the kitchen over the stairgate and got the keys for the nursery cupboards, unlocked the cupboard for the paints, and was caught handing out paint to the other kids.

This made me laugh so much!

My coffee table got stored away until DC were older

These stories are making me laugh! Although I'm sure it wasn't always very funny at the time, but these kids are something else.. 😂

That's baby life.
Completely normal.

Buy an indoor wooden climbing frame and redirect him to that any time he's climbing. Mine are older now but still love to climb and injure themselves😃 very stressful haha. My kids had this (but it was before they were really sold in the UK so I had to order from Denmark and it cost me 300 and it's currently rotting away in the garden shed💔)

This is a great idea, thank you!

Do you plan on having more kids? It’s not a particularly short phase, for us it lasted from 9-18 months then was repeated again when DC2 came along and then yeah obviously I supervise them and tell them no but even now they’re older they still occasionally think it’s a good idea to climb on top of it to play superheroes. So tbh I’d just replace with something more kid friendly. We have a footstool type one now which is soft and the inside is used for duplo storage so it’s loads better than the fancy marble one we used to have!

We have Iglu foam blocks for climbing. He uses them as steps to get onto other things. I just have to follow him around or put him in the high chair if I really need hands free

I would put the coffee table away for a year or two. No need to buy a new one.
You can't leave drinks around with a toddler unless you put them up very high

My eldest was a climber: under a year old and just walking. We had floor to ceiling book shelves in one room. I needed to pop to the loo so left him in the middle of the floor with his toys and put my handbag on the highest shelf I could reach. Two mins later I came back and he was playing with my handbag and contents. Little monkey had climbed the shelves just like a ladder 🙈

You either get a climber or not in my experience. Both mine were climbers. I’d put a chair on table and DD would move stuff until she could climb up and then up onto the chair. Would always climb shelves. Or cupboards. Or up the cooker and even the fridge and across back of sofa. DD would climb up stuff and then launch herself into DS cot.
Lasted until about age 3 with both

Lol. When mine were babies and toddlers our house looked spartan but for the random kitchen implements from bottom drawers that were apparently better toys than the expensive eco-friendly wooden things we and others loving bought them. When they were old enough for us to have actual furniture back, we went through a phase of stained upholstery and marked walls. When we got through that phase it was onto cushions and blankets left strewn on the living room floor, plates with crumbs on left on side tables, socks stuffed between sofa cushions. Once they were trained out of that I’d wake up to a kitchen I’d left spotless the night before now filled with eggy frying pans and bowls with cereal encrusted onto them. Getting towards the end of that phase now.

My DM tells me I’ll miss is when it’s gone. I can see it, but think I’m going to need a good long stretch of a nice home again before I get there!

If you replace that he’ll find something else so leave it as it is, second child syndrome should be a formal diagnosis because these lunatic kids are real 😂. Climbing frame is a good idea, smyths had them on sale recently. He’ll figure it out pretty fast if he takes a tumble or 2, if it’s not a bad fall don’t even react or anything, let him figure it out himself and he’ll catch on pretty quick how to avoid it. I didn’t even use a stagnate for my last 3 and they’re the only ones who never fell down the stairs lol

@canklesmctacotits you’ve nail how it goes. I literally laughed out loud. Mine was climbing and emptying cupboards. Entire kitchen floor covered in Cheerios. On repeat. Then the drawing on walls kinda phase. And the muddy sports phase too (still got that) and then teen phase .. trash the kitchen when you aren’t looking.
either cooking ‘snacks’ or thinking it’s a really great idea to bake a cake at 11pm