Climbing like a monkey

[Corbin]

My dd is 13 months, and has just learned two days ago how to climb on furniture. She's going to give me gray hair! I left her in our living room (which is gated and WAS childproof) while I ran out to get the mail. I was only outside for less than a minute, but when I got back in I heard her making a funny grunting noise and ran in to her. I found her with one leg over the back of a very big wingback chair hanging over the back, unsure of what to do next. Over the course of the day, I picked her off the top of every piece of furniture in the house.

I suddenly can't leave her alone for a second, it's not even safe to pop in a video for a few minutes while I wash up the dishes (the kitchen is in sight of the living room). I don't want to leave her alone for long periods of time, but sometimes I do like to use the bathroom alone. She's terribly fast at getting up onto things.

As well, she's throwing major tantrums about it. She'll go to a chair or table and throw her leg up onto it to begin climbing and I'll say "Elizabeth, no climbing please" or I'll just remove her physically from it. She will stop dead when I ask her to stop-but she will immediately scrunch up her face and shriek at the top of her voice, then throw herself on the floor (hardwood of course) kicking and screaming. While she's in the tantrum I sit there with her and tell her I'm right there with her but she needs to listen. As soon as she's calmed down again, she tries to climb up again and we do the whole thing over again. Yesterday she managed to get up a chair and fall off the back before I could even get across the room to her. I was right there, and she was still too fast! Poor thing has a big goose-egg bump on her head and a scratch. But she didn't learn anything from the experience.

I'm a bit at a loss as to how to solve this one, as it's not very practical to remove all of my furniture from the house! I like to have a child-safe home where I'm fairly assured that she won't get hurt but I'm not going to live in a bare house!

I think she may have cabin fever, as we used to go to the park every day to play. The weather here has turned very nasty and I've hesitated to take her. Perhaps I'll just bundle her into a raincoat and boots and go anyhow. I doubt at this point that will solve the problem since she seems to love being up high on the backs of chairs, so I'd welcome any advice you may have!

My only advice is to put down lots of padding under the furniture My Climber has been removed from the dining room table, the top of the clothes airer (it was bending), several rungs up the loft ladder, his brother's cabin bed, the toy kitchen.... need I go on?

I think you can only keep saying No firmly and removing her from the more dangerous items of furniture.

My dd was a big climber (still is though not so bad) - I once found her head first in her toy basket, legs in the air, having just dived off the sofa. The only thing that stopped the more dangerous expeditions was when she actually fell and badly bruised her ear. Once they fall they understand the danger and hopefully don't get too hurt in the process

Welcome to my life for the last 12 months. My ds could climb a ladder before he could walk and it's been downhill from there. His current favorite occupation is to leap from a coffee table onto an armchair while shouting "mummy says no." It seems that the more I say no the more inviting the climbing becomes. And unfortunately, hurting himself while climbing/jumping doesn't seem to put him off from doing it again and again. Hence despite the fact that I never leave him alone, I have a child who is covered in bruises and bumps. I just hope he grows out of it before he is old enough to take up sky diving. My advice is to never leave your dd alone and try to catch her when she leaps off things that don't have something soft below....

DS1 leaps from the coffee table to the sofa - he's being Buzz Lightyear apparently.

... I don't have the heart to stop him - it looks such fun.

Ditto - we go to the local pub with ball pit climbing area practically eveery week as she loves it so much and in there I don't have to worry about her hurting herself - she happily dives off into the area for older children ( but it's a toddler session so only little ones in there) even tho' it has quite big drops and when down some of them she can't get back up and I have to go in and rescue her on occasion - but nothing fazes her and even when she falls and altho' unhurt you would expect her to be shocked she just gets up and carries on!

My ds has just reached the monkey stage at 15 mths. One of our chairs was safely guarding my best book & video collection, not to mention a crystal vase, phone & plant. I guess now there'll be even more nos, stop its & leave its coming from my lips. I refuse to move anything else!

It came as a shock to me when my son started scaling the heights. I just could not stop him, do have to admit I gave up and tried damage limitation. Instantly made me feel tons better. Moved the most dangerous and breakable stuff away and let him get on with it. Must admit it helped to have carpets, though. Corbin, could you strategically place some mats around your rooms with non-slip undersides?

Of course I watched my son as much as I could, but having seen him fall off things and not get too fussed about the resulting bruise or scratch, I decided I wouldn't either. Once I'd seen him survive the worst that could happen from a particular climb area, I thought well OK, that's not so bad then. Hope this doesn't make me sound like a neglectful mother!

Also, I kept saying to myself, the more he climbs the more he's learning to balance, so for his long term safety, it's actually not a bad thing.

Corbin This is so normal. My 1st dd always had a sense of self preservation and never fell of anything. DD2 is mental. by 7 months she learnt to climb the stairs (within days of crawling) and promptly learnt how to fall down every single one (Yes we had a baby gate but dd2 knew how to open it!) By the 10 months it was all the furniture like chairs and low tables. At 15 months she climbed the climbing frame with rungs about 12" apart! Now at 18 months she will climb everything and thinks it is the funniest game in the world divebombing off furniture (she's a clever little thing, she'll pull a cushion to the right place for a crash mat!!)

Anyway, you won't be able to stop her, and she will have bumps and bruises, but please don't worry. Playgrounds are great and those indoor ones are fab for little climbers. I have to say go with teh flow or you'll kill yourself worrying

Corbin, while it won't stop your dd climbing everything, it might help to distract her if she's going somewhere you REALLY don't want her to go. Trouble with 'no' is that for most toddlers it means 'what can I get away with?' and 'oooo, a reaction - how interesting!'. I've found that the best way to stop my ds is to distract him just before or just as he starts doing whatever I don't want him to do.

Corbin, take heart. She'll be ace in the playground. My dd (now 3) also started mountaineering at an early age (often with specific purpose - to the fridge, the biscuit tin etc.!) and I spent much time in playgrounds watching her climb all the bits that say 'over 5s' when she was less than two. I've been lucky so far in that she's tall, sure-footed, determined like yours and methodical - you can clearly see her working out precisely how to get to where she wants. It's actually lovely to have a child like that who doesn't need much watching - because she did so much so young, she's got really good at it. As others have said, this phase will pass so just make sure there's nothing too tempting up high for her to pursue, pad the floor sometimes if necessary and take her to the playground every every day ... Then enjoy your reward when you get to smile airily at other mothers whose little darlings are standing by the climbing frame shrieking for help (like my own ds) while your dd is scaling the heights!

Corbin, I sympathise with you. My second child walked at 10 months and climbed soon after! I decided that it was unlikely I could stop this behaviour and certainly couldn't watch her every minute. So we went to Tumbletots. I reasoned that at least it would teach her how to do it safely! It worked too. She continued climbing, scrambling, jumping etc. but seemed more able, more sure-footed and less likely to bump herself. I was relieved, however, that when at 17months old, as she climbed out of her cot, there was a big cushion to break her rather dramatic fall!

Thanks everyone, it's a big relief to know that I'm not alone and that this phase is normal and will pass!

It seems that she may have learned more from her big tumble than I originally thought. She still climbs, but stays on the seats of chairs and sofas instead of perching on the top edge.

You're right-it is fun at the playground when people look at her in amazement as she scrambles to the top to go down the slide! No one believes me when I tell them she's just nearly 14 months old even though she's very petite for her age and looks even younger.

I spoke to my mother yesterday and she told me that I nearly gave her a heart attack at least twice a day doing the same thing at the same age. Elizabeth must come by this behavior honestly!

Corbin, I agree with Inkpen and Sylvev. My dd walked at 9.5 months, and climbed like a monkey - largely in pursuit of her older brother, who she adored (still does) and could not bear to be parted from. Because she was so petite it always looked very impressive and scared people to death! However, it has made her very physically competent and balanced. At 18 months in pursuit of ds she climbed up a cargo net into the tummy of a large (20' high) dinosaur at an amusement park (dh was in charge at the time, I'd like to point out!) - problem was that we were too big to follow her, so we had to try and talk ds into guiding her round all the ladders and slides inside then down the big slide to get out. She thought it was great - I was having kittens .