pulling himself up to standing......how long before he finds his balance?

[queenrollo]

now i know this is a 'how long is a piece of string' question!
ds is just over 10 months and can pull himself up to standing, and is cruising the furniture. he's not quite figured out how to get back down again or turn around without doing himself an injury so my days are currently spent following about a foot behind him everywhere he goes.
i was just wondering if some of you could share your stories about where your children progressed from here and if there's anything i should be doing with him to help him. he's reached this stage and is very frustrated a lot of the time........just like when he was figuring out how to crawl.

Hiya

Congrats to DS! Sam got his balance after a week or so I guess and fell a lot less. Walking followed about 2-3 months later.
We used a toddler helmet to protect his head, specially as we was very young (7 months-ish), but mainly I let him fall as I figure its part of the learning process

DS was doing exactly the same at around the same age. He is now almost 13 months and walking quite confidently (although still tumbles a bit). We still keep quite a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't fall with his head on a corner or into the wall (although he ran headfirst into the wall yesterday). We let him fall on the carpet as part of the learning process, as dreamteamgirl said. I found that when he was pulling himself up onto the sofa at around 10/11 months and didn't know how to get down we would show him how whilst saying 'How do we get down from the sofa/bed?' Now at 13 months all you have to say is 'How do you get down?' and he turns himself around and slides off!

queenrollo - snap! This is exactly where ds is too. Talk about tears. It's tears because he can't get down again, or it's tears because he falls down and hurts himself. It's a nightmare because we have wooden flooring.

Hi again

I have to say the toddler helmets were a godsend. We got ours from these guys \link{http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Baby-Toddler-Soft-Padded-Protective-Helmet-BNWT_W0QQitemZ7775423770QQcategoryZ20436QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem\toddler helmet}
They list them quite a lot - I think some one must send them to them, and they did me a buy it now. The Swedes/ Fins etc all use them cos they all have wooden floors there and they are all so safety consience. Sam did look a little 'special' in it, but it also saved him so much damage it was worth it :-)
DTG