My first baby is a physically adventurous little boy of seven months. As he gets more active, I'm finding it really hard to know where to draw the line between protecting him from harm, and letting him explore the world for himself. Does anyone have any guidance on how much you should let LOs bump themselves?
This morning, for example, he was sitting in his cot playing, and I sort of fence him in on three sides - he has the bars close to him in front and on one side, and a cushion propped against the bars behind him so that he doesn't whack his head if he falls backwards. Anyway, he was trying to pull himself up to standing (which he keeps trying to do at the moment), and I decided to let him try it on his own. He got most of the way up, then fell over sideways onto the mattress (ie the one side I hadn't 'fenced off'), bashing his nose on the bars on the way down. Cue five minutes of screaming. He clearly hadn't hurt himself properly, but I then suddenly got paranoid about what could have happened if he'd had his leg or arm trapped through the bars as he fell. Should I have been there to catch him if he tumbled? Or should I let him get on with it? Any advice much appreciated.