Baby crawling on carpets

[PlumSquid]

Hi, first time mum and my 6 month old has started crawling. We have a big playmat but we know we can't limit her to it forever but our problem is the whole house is carpet. We have three dogs and two cats so hair is everywhere! We have a separate living room away from the dogs but hair still travels. How do I let her crawl on the carpet without her hands getting covered and then eating the hair?

Vacuum, a lot. Perhaps you need to limit where the pet s go too plus brush them a lot too to reduce hair dropping

Try not to panic. I know it seems worrying but pretty soon they’ll lick the cat (ask me how I know…the now 8 year old had a cold too so we had to clean cat fur from his mouth and snot off a grumpy cat) and you’ll cringe and hope it’s good for their immune system.

You'll have to clean your carpets 🤷

Hair doesn't stick to skin though? It will get on her knees and cuffs, but will she really nibble the hairs off her cuffs? Can't imagine she'll do it twice anyway 🤣
We have a dog and the kids have never eaten any hair that I've noticed...

Hoover, but accept she’ll eat a bit of it.

Once you've seen a crawling baby try to eat a worm in the garden or lick a friend you realise the futility in trying to keep them clean. Do the best you can and be happy that they are building an immune system.

We're at the teething stage so her hands are always sticky 😂

It just seems at the stage of still sterlising bottles and letting them eat cat fur are two very conflicting things 😂

just seems at the stage of still sterlising bottles and letting them eat cat fur are two very conflicting things 😂

Isn't 6 months about the time you stop doing that anyway?

Nature takes care of itself TBH. The point at which babies become mobile, is the point at which their bodies can deal with this sort of stuff.

Just hoover every day or so and you'll be fine.

I've always had a minimum of 3 cats and a dog with my dc. And we just hoovered daily.

It sticks to sticky wet baby hands. I hated it when my son would crawl on my grandmother's carpet. It was utterly vile and she does hoover. Thankfully he's running about now and it's less of a problem.

I hate carpets. Gross.

Rubber broom (you’d be amazed how much hair it still picks up after you’ve hoovered!) and daily hoovering.

Also daily brushing of pets should keep the shedding down.

Apparently you're supposed to sterilise bottles til 1. I stopped at 8 months when I realised that everything on the floor ended up in his mouth so it seemed futile. He was absolutely fine 😂 I don't have pets but I hated the thought of crawling on carpet with wet hands so I used to put a couple of throws on the floor for him to crawl on. Also I never let anyone wear shoes in the flat. I can only assume that you're going to need to restrict where your dogs go and hoover, alot

Sterilising bottles for formula is specifically because the manufacture of formula powder can contain illness-causing bacteria, Cronobacter. It's not supposed to kill bacteria living in your home environment. That's why there's no need to sterilise bottled used solely for breast milk, or plates and water cups, or teething toys. You can, and often if you've got a steriliser running it's very easy to chuck things like dummies in, but it's not actually necessary.
https://www.cdc.gov/cronobacter/about/index.html

Hoover daily, brush pets regularly and wipe baby's hands dry when you can. That's all you can do. It's good immunity building anyway! My two have never had any problem around the 2 cats hair. Have to say you're brave heading into toddlerhood with carpet everywhere though. Toddlers are extremely sticky messy creatures. Any chance of putting hard floor down if the carpets are old?

Not the point of the thread but I absolutely take my hat off to you for having that many pets and a baby, must be so tiring!

I've got 2 kids and 1 dog and I'm knackered!

Hoover daily as others have said. I do one 'proper hoover' a week (moving stuff out of the way, the edges etc) but a quick hoover downstairs and spray mop happens daily sometimes twice daily. It's a lot of work.

Groom the animals, hoover lots and accept some hair will get eaten.

Sterilising bottles is because of the formula. I wouldn’t worry about cat fur, just hoover daily.

Even the bathrooms have carpet 😂 it's an old house we inherited so currently trying do up to suit us but slow progress with a 6 month old!

I'm not one for being excessively clean and happy for them to get messy but hair is another thing and feels wrong for them to eat

Thank you! It was a bold choice for us but so lucky we have a big garden and laid back dogs that they don't mind missing walks.

We had DS immediately after buying an old house that needed a lot of work. With hindsight, I should have just dragged all the carpets into the front garden adn got the council to collect them. They were grim. The wood underneath was much nicer and really anything would have been better.

Would it work for you if you just pitched all the carpets?

In the end we gradually replaced everything with engineered wood, but it took time because unfortunately all the doorframes had peeling wood and we had to deal with lead paint first. It was a bit complicated.

I'd love to reduce the amount of carpet just with having all the pets! What did you do for the stairs as we have continuous carpet from front door, hallway, stairs then upstairs landing but wanted something toddler friendly (non-slip) for the stairs!