Help! How to teach 8mth dd not to climb sofa

[MummyOfSunbeam]

My astonishingly precocious 8.5 month dd has been standing without needing to pull herself up for 2.5 months as well as crawling and cruising and now she is able to CLIMB OUR SOfA and up to the window ledge. She stands on the sofa and waves her arms about!

The window doesn't open but I am woried she could fall through he glass , or OFF the sofa backwards - ahe already nearly has. We have babyproofed all we can find but there is nowhere else he sofa literally fits so we can't hide it elsewhere.

She can climb up but has no sense of her danger and quite happily threw herself off the sofa backwards! Luckily I caught her but she would have landed on her neck - i caught her and she didn't even squeak and just beamed and tried to climb again.

Obviously we are watching her like hawks to stop her but HOW do I teach an 8.5 month old not to do something?? In my blissful attachment parenting experience so far I haven't faced anything like this! I have no idea how to teach this limit.

If she falls off she could break her neck. :( she has taught hersel to climb down other things carefully - eg off our bed mattress into the floor - age is very clever about that now, but only after two very mild falls onto carpet while crawling on her elbows. I can't risk her learning by falling in this case!

I don't think you can teach them not to climb (especially unlearn something) what you can do is try and teach her to climb safely and as the parent minimise risk e.g pillows down.
Mine bounced a few times off the sofa (onto the hard wooden floor) before he learnt not to do it.
I'd move stuff so she can't climb near the stuff she really could hurt herself like glass etc.

I lost the battle with my DS too. Also a hard wooden floor. It hasn't deterred him much.

My dd2 is like this.

We put down a padded mat and pillows until she learnt to get down backwards.

Whenever she climbed up we said no climbing and removed her. If she did it again she went in her playpen for 5 mins and repeat.

These are very helpful tips - thank you. We have foam mats and a duvet on the floor by the sofa but I will add some mighty pillows -

Stitch, how long did it take for yours to learn to go down backwards? It's a relief to realise she will eventually!

I am meanwhile still worried about the exterior window. It isn't safety glass but is double glazed. I have been told (by glazing companies) contradictory things about how safe it is. I wish I could afford to just straight away replace it with expensive toughened glass :(

Can you buy some stick-on film for the window so that if it did break, the film would protect her from the glass a bit?

That is a good idea Poppy and a definite possibility. It could protect against shards but My worst case scenario is her falling through it onto the paving outside :/ not sure if film would work for preventing that. Obviously I never intend her to get up that far but she moves so fast!!

You don't have blinds on the window do you? Just a thought about those cords.

Oh and tumble tots is very good at teaching them to come down backwards

Can't help with her not launching herself off the sofa, but as far as teaching her to go backwards, never pick her "up" off the sofa, always go through the rigmarole of turning her round and helping her get down. It's annoying, but then she'll learn that's the only way to get off the sofa. Do it with any other step, bed etc. and it'll become second nature very quickly.

I typed a reply but I think it got lost -

Damnauto, thank goodness no blinds - I removed them all whe pregnant! But I don't want her swinging like Tarzan on the short curtains either and she is trying to do that too, ha.

Trip very interesting - I will look into tumbletots. She has access to Gymboree bit the problem is hat classes are very age specific and at her age don't even think she can stand or crawl reliably, let alone clamber over furniture. I will ask though!

MummyOfSunbeam, in reply to your question, she was 12 months before she started getting down backwards consistently. I think she would have learnt sooner if she hadn't enjoyed diving onto the mat so much, but our floor is very hard, so I couldn't risk taking it away until I was sure she would make it down safely.

Because of her age, anything you try to teach her will take a while to sink in. So instead of spending the next however long trying to stop her from climbing the sofa, instead use that time to teach her how to climb up, and more importantly down, safely.

Both will take time but you might as well make it a positive thing for her (and you) than a negative one of constantly saying "No" and removing everytime.

Just to add to what xMinerva said, we didn't remove dd when she climbed onto the sofa seat, she was allowed on the sofa, we just removed her when she climbed up the arms onto the back of the sofa.

Feet first, feet first...
Seemed to spend months saying that but now dd can and does get off the sofas safely and goes down the stairs sensibly - ds took forever before he could be trusted to go down by himself.

Thanks v much Minerva, Stitch and Notcitrus - v useful !