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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

How do you teach a baby to go down stairs?

29 replies

ShinyMoonInAPurpleSky · 14/03/2011 09:46

My ds has just climbed to the top of the stairs with no help from me, although obviously I was right behind him the whole way (so dh has been sent to finally buy some baby gates - many thanks to everyone who helped on my thread about that a few days ago :o)

But now I'm wondering how you teach a baby to get down a step on their own? And when should they be taught this?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

LaWeasel · 15/03/2011 09:47

[sigh] More crying and refusals today. Tried to use the incentive of breakfast being downstairs and songs etc.

I'm thinking of maybe a two man tactic at the weekend.

ScroobiousPip · 15/03/2011 10:09

OP - you can encourage them by showing them how to turn around and go down backwards but ultimately they have to work it out for themselves. If you've got a single step, eg a backdoor step, that's a great way for them to start.

It doesn't matter too much if he doesn't pick it up straight away as he'll be walking soon enough and then he'll want to walk downstairs rather than crawl anyway.

LaWeasel - could you try on a smaller set of stairs, like on a slide at the playground? Or start from the bottom of your staircase rather than the top, eg jumping off the bottom step and then building up to walking down two steps?

Iggly · 15/03/2011 11:24

La I'd leave it for now. Don't make a big deal of it otherwise it'll become a big deal for her. Try forgetting for a few days, then one day slide down yourself and see if she copies. If not, leave again. Any time she refuses, brush it off, and carry on as normal.

LaWeasel · 27/04/2011 09:43

Coming back to update:

I did give up, and a few weeks later she got a bed for her birthday. Once she could get out of bed at naptime but was stuck on the landing with nothing to do the motivation seemed to strike! Two weeks later she appeared downstairs at naptime.

She comes down on her bum, so I think it was a combination of not really wanting to, and wanting to be able to see what she was doing and the stairs being too steep until she was quite tall to be able to come down facing forwards.

Thanks for all the advice, and sorry about hijack OP!

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