Toddlers

[EPN]

I have an almost 3 year old who is not very advanced in the talking game she has about 10 words she uses regularly and a few more that come and go. Speech therapy have seen her and they didn't have any concerns just told us to carry on doing the activities to encourage speech. Speech delay is in the family so trying not to be too concerned. The issue is she climbs, she's very good at it and she's been very mobile and physically skilled from early on. She was walking at 10 months and the climbing didn't follow too late after that. Weve done as much to proof the house as possible, we do all the distraction, physical play, taking her outside as much as possible, providing safe opportunities as much as possible in the house and play parks woodland rocks anywhere that's safe for her to investigate this clear skill she has. I mean her upper body strength is brilliant frankly. But we can't stop her in the house. You take her down and distract over and over. You can't be in the play park every hour of the day and at almost three I cannot turn my back for a second. Some days she just will not stop once she starts and then she has a super tantrum and I am demented by the end of the day. It's making life a bit of a nightmare and I'm not sure if I'm just unrealistic about how crazy toddlers are because my oldest was the most chilled out cat in town and she's the anomaly or if there's more to the situation than I already know. Hoping to hear lots of tales about stunt man toddlers please 🙏

Our little girl goes to a bouldering wall which has a rocktots session. Helps her to interact and climb, when she climbs on stuff at home we say that we only climb when we go to her class. Does she go to childcare? Our little girls speech got crazy when she started at a better nursery at 15 months. She’s 2yrs 2 months and her speech is great compared to her peers. It is a double edged sword as she gets frustrated when we say no to her requests

What is it you are wanting to stop her from climbing? I have 2 year old twins whom love to climb too. So at the park or soft play they will be at the top of the biggest climbing frames. But they safely climb so I let them do it. Often have to persuade my 5 year old (whom is the opposite) to climb up and persuade them to come down!

Windowsills, tv cabinet sideboard to swing off the tv bracket (luckily my husband and drilled it into the brick), over the landing banister, climbing to the top of the toy kitchen, them ikea square shelving units, constantly standing on the dinning table, dragging the dinning chairs to get to the breakfast bar (we've even resorted to cable tying them to the dinning table) it's a concrete floor with laminate downstairs and we've already been in a and e once with bloody nose. I've got her a climbing frame indoors and outdoors and loads of soft play blocks in the playroom but she'd rather leap to stand on the breakfast bar in the time it takes me to walk to the front door and wave at whoever rings the door bell..... we've screwed everything to the wall to mitigate risk but obviously there are just some things she shouldn't be climbing on....... its all bit crazy really😬😬 I take her to play parks as often as is reasonably possible. Funnily enough...she's alot more cautious and often a but reticent...it makes no sense.

For things in the house that they can't climb. Rather than say no. I will say something like "is the sofa for climbing and jumping on?" They reply "no for sitting". "Is the kitchen for climbing in" they reply "no for cooking" etc etc. I also then will say "where can you climb" and they will answer "in the garden" etc.

Or I might say things like "it's hot in the kitchen, so you'll get hurt". "Climbing on the TV wil break it". I've also pretend for an evening they had broke the tv after climbing on it.

So to not be saying no all the time and letting them feel they have made the decision. After a while of this I rarely needed to worry about climbing on dangerous stuff as they stopped. On the odd occasion they do it now I'll say "what happens if you climb on the tv" and they reply "it breaks". "What happens if you fall off the window" "ouchy" Starting to understand the consequences themselves

Thanks for your response Domino. This is all really good advice and I've done this till I'm blue in the face ....my kid don't give a sh!£ 😂😑