Should I be allowing my 6 month old to do this?

[pinktinselanddollymixtures]

Hiya,

dd3 will be 6 months old on the 13th January. She loves to stand, is really great at weight bearing and wants to do it loads. Also if you hold her under the arms she will actually walk (bit awkward like, but walking all the same). Is this good for her legs? she is tiny at 11 lbs 12oz.

let her do it. no harm to be done. dd loved it. she sounds like her gross motor skills are excellent as my dd was. on her birth day she was pushing her own pushchair down Las Ramblas in Barcelona.

my ds1 was the same. It was back breaking because he just wanted to be up & 'walking' from 6 months.

Sorry, that sounded a bit negative. Wasn't meant to be. I just let him get on with it.

have you got her a door bouncer? dd loves hers cos she's one for wanting to be upright all the time and i can't take the strain too often.

sit in one of your living room chairs with both legs straight out. put your ds between them to stand. your legs are like 2 balance beams he can hold on to while you are forced to tighten (read 'tone') your pelvic floor muscles and thigh muscles. not that is whan i call multi tasking.

Thanks for your replies, just wasn't sure. I will probably invest in a door bouncer.

i found this link about door bouncers on another thread which you may want to read before buying one.

here

i have no experience with them btw. i just let my dd crawl around and pull herself up when she was up to it. didn't bother trying to walk her around as too busy and lazy. she was walking by 10 months.

We have one in NZ and Australia called the Jolly Jumper, they are a bit of an institution and the baby is held very securely in the bottom bit, rather than being "sat" like some of the ones I have seen. They claim they are not dangerous - but then I suppose they would say that, but they must be able to substantiate that claim.

They have been around for ages, and I've never read of any baby being damaged by one.

i wouldn't personally do this until lo can pull up by herself. if she can do this then its fine. otherwise it will be bad for her back (and yours

I think bouncers, when used for short periods of time are pretty unlikely to cause major problems. Walkers are a different matter IMO as they are quite dangerous in their own right because of the risk of tipping over, falling down steps etc.

friends husband is in orthapeadics (sp?) and can't stand them. something about the fact that they hold the baby in a half sitting/half standing position and also encourage them to bounce on their toes. using them also means they are in an upright position, straightening their back before they are ready and at a time when the spine should still be quite flexed and straightening out by itself. he always told me not to let ds use anything that "forced" him to sit up before he could sit up by himself and not to let him use anything that puts him in a standing position before he can pull up and get into that position by himself. when he can do this he daid his body is ready for him to be in those positions and it won't harm him, but before that it will even for a short amount of time.

however i am sure there are lots of babies who have used them and are ok and maybe they were just the lucky ones?

they say on them not to use for more than 20 minutes.

my chiropractor is dead against bouncers, bumbos, basically every 'sitting' or 'standing' thing on the market - she'd ban them all outright. she says that babies should be on the floor and when they are ready to pull themselves up you should let them stand and cruise, not walk around being held by you as it does something different to their spines. she is totally hardcore, however...

sounds like she is talking along the same lines as friends dh ...

aitch what do you reckon to bumbos purely for weaning if lo can't sit up yet. i was thinking of getting one cos at the moment i sit ds on my lap but i get covered in mushed up food! i was thinking a bumbo only puts him in the same position as i pu him in sitting up on my lap but i'm not sure?

(I thought one of the 'ready for weaning' signs was that they could sit up by themselves... but I could well be wrong, or you could be weaning early on medical advice or something.
Best to just ignore me, I think)

it is sitting supported not alone that is the sign i thought?

oh, I read 'sitting unsupported' on Kellymom, but as I say, I don't know about your situation (or even how old your ds is!)

he is 6 months. i think some of the sites vary - some say unsupported and some say supported.

i'm never sure about that one. dd was sitting unsupported by 6 months so i never had to worry about it. and she HATED the bumbo we borrowed so another moot point.
tbh if it was me i'd probably leave it til they could sit unsupported, just because i'm guessing that means their core stability muscles are better prepared for coughing something up if necessary. plus i think you said that your DS isn't so fussed about picking up food at the moment, so that's maybe another sign that it's not for him just yet. but then again, if he likes it when he's on your lap then you'd be right there to slap his back if he got into difficulties... tricky. i really don't like bumbos, tbh, they seemed to me to pen DD in and she escaped from it easily and incredibly dangerously. but loads of people swear by them, so it's hard to say. i'm only a first-time mum too so i'm making this all up as i go along, remember?

i think i'm gonna stop stressing and leave it a few more weeks. i only started cos everyone keeps saying he will end up aneamic cos the iron levels drop at 6 months, but they are probably talking a load of rubbish.

you are FF, i promise you that everyone is talking a load of complete and utter bolleaux. there's enough iron in the formula, i promise.

maybe if you got something like this

i think that's where i got confused. i thought breast milk had more iron in it, but it is that it is more readily absorbed? i think that's right.

hunker did a link a while ago about depleting iron levels. i think it was from kellymom.com