K&K have finally begun crawling & standing on furniture, and I can't believe I was so impatient for this moment... lol. Krystal is good, she just plays with her toys for the most part, unless she is trying to climb up the furniture. However, Kaylee on the other hand, gets into EVERYTHING but her toys! If its on the coffee table, she goes for it. If its plugged into the wall, she wants the cord. If it has lights (ps3, xbox360, remote controls) she wants to push the buttons. And, she's a little smarty pants. The other day she was looking at and sitting next to the PS3 (on the 2nd shelf of our tv center), about to reach to touch it and I told her no. She looked at me, and pulled her hand back. She reached again, and I told her no again, so she pulled her hand away one more time. THEN, she reaches for it, I say no, she smiled at me and puts BOTH hands on it! Ugh. So I just picked her up, said no, and moved her away. Some friends have said its time to lightly "swat" her hand when she does stuff and say no, but when I googled this it said to just say no. But saying it obviously isn't teaching her.. she knows what it means, but that doesn't mean she is going to listen. I would put the baby gates around it, but they got sent out with our furniture pack out (loaner furniture from the military is what they are climbing up on that is so little for them). So, any advice?
At this age, redirection and giving her something safe to play with will work better than negative reinforcement. Instead of repeating no, tell her "get your (insert nearby toy) and if she doesn't go for it, pick her up and redirect her like you did. Also, babies really respond better when you get down at their level than from across the room. You will see that when you do that for a while, you can then tell her from across the room and she will do as you like.
At 8 months they are not going to understand the word "no". Heck, my boys just turned 2 and know what no means and will still do things I don't want them to do. :laughing: At that age all you can do is redirect and babyproof. There was a time when I swear I was going to Babies R Us every other day to pick up some new babyproofing product because they would figure out how to do something. IMHO, swatting her will not help. She is too young to understand why you are hitting her hand. When mine learned to crawl, pull themselves up and then walked, I was constantly putting things away. I did not have table lamps for a good year. I had a bench in the hallway that I stored in the garage because they would climb and then fall off of it. I still don't have end of coffee tables in our family room. They do make plastic panels that slide under electronics to prevent them from turning things on. I've seen them at BRU and a few other stores. If that's not an option, can you move things higher so they can't get to them? Hang in there, the facination will wear off in time.
Thanks ladies for the advice. I was pretty sure swatting wasn't the answer, so I thought I would ask for other opinions. Right now we are just with limited furniture & what we can pack into suitcases, so unfortunatly everything is pretty much what we're going to get (and, lack of a babies r us).. lol. Thanks though for telling me about those panels, I am going to need to go get those once we get there!
It is going to be a long time until they understand what 'no' means. I personally do not swat mine on the hand, not that I think there's anything majorly wrong with that. I just don't think it really works. The only thing you can really do is to tell her no and then distract her with something new. As they get older I would tell them no and then move them to play with something else. This turned into telling them no and then picking them up really quick, so they get the picture that they are being removed from whatever it was. It just takes time.
That is what I've been doing.. you know, catching her about to (or sometimes doing it) and then say no, pick her up and put her with their toys. And then I look up and she's right back where I took her away from, so after doing this a few times I just give up and put her in the jumper. Before all our stuff got packed they weren't really moving, so as soon as we get into the new house it will be baby proofing time!
I find giving them something appropriate to do (toy with buttons, play time with you, different room) is so much more effective than "no". Even saying "keep going" say, if they're going for the dog's water dish. I try to make the rooms the children are in most in my house "yes" environments - where they can touch/play with pretty much anything they can get to. Much more enjoyable for me/them when I don't have to redirect, etc. all the time.
No takes a long time to learn. And I went through the exact same thing with Olivia (my oldest) when she was a baby (she was probably closer to 1 than your little ones). She kept going after the cord on the lamp. I told her no a million times, then I told her no & swatted her on the hand. She turned right around & hit me back. That was the last time I ever hit one of my kids, obviously it wasn't teaching her anything. If you keep saying no & redirecting, they eventually get it. It will be much easier when you are in a house that you can babyproof!
We are going through this with my little boy. His current obsession is climbing on the table. He pushes a chair out from the table, and then uses that to get onto the table. We swat, we tell him no, we redirect, we put him in the pack n play for a few minutes; nothing deters him. He just keeps going at it and going at it. I didn't have this problem with older DD and little DD never trys to climb, and seems to understand and respond to NO. I really wish I could give you some great advice, cause I know what you're going through, but I haven't found anything that works yet. He even shouts yeah! back at me when I tell him no.
