how to deal with a climber?

Hi! We have 4 children (my last two are my twins...17 months old) and I had never had a climber......until Rachael!!! Oh man. I cannot let her out of my sight for 30 seconds. I find her sitting/standing on the end tables..... Yesterday, I left the kitchen for a minute and when I came back she was standing on the kitchen table with a red, plastic fire fighter hat on her head. Today she stood on the arms of the chair and threw the pictures off the tops of the bookcase. And this is with us watching her pretty carefully!!!! All you need to do is take your eyes off her and boom she is into trouble.....it's just a matter of time before she figures out the crib. I'm petrified she is going to get hurt!

Please help me with suggestions for dealing with climbers. I try to put her in timeout but she doesn't get it really yet. I just keep grabbing her off and saying, "We don't climb on the ______" It's like she thinks it's a game. Since she is my fourth I feel like I should know how to deal with this, but I'm at a loss. Please help me!!

shannon

 

Both of my girls are climbers, so I feel your pain! For us we removed a lot of things they climbed on. We removed all the kitchen chairs, end tables, coffee tables etc... and I still feel like they still managed to climb. They would pull out the drawers in the kitchen, and make their way to the counter tops. I bought them climbers and tried to encourage that, but honestly I don't think it did much good.

Finally around 2½ they started to listen and understand that we don't do that, but even now it's not 100%. They still climb, and if nothing else at least they are fairly good at it now. They have taken their fair share of spills though, and I joke that the reason they have bangs is to cover up the constant goose eggs on their foreheads!

Good Luck!

 

I have 15 month old climbers and it is scary. Luckily for me they really just want to climb on the couch, the ottoman, and the chairs in our den. I gave up on trying to get them to stop and I have enforced telling them to "sit down". I figure at least that way if they are on top of something they aren't boucning, jumping, or walking. Sadly I think if you have climbers you just have climbers. I figure the best you can do is move what you need to move and just try to keep them as safe as you can. I will say that the girls have become good at getting up, but with that comes good at getting down too. Good luck, and if anything works for you please post.

 

Yowza, sounds like you have a little mountain goat on your hands! My guys like to climb, but aren't nearly as intrepid as your Rachael. One thing that was really important to me when my guys started to climb up on the couch, fireplace, go downstairs, etc. was to teach them the "right way" to get down. So when they would start to take a header off of the couch, I would stop them, tell them "turn around and go down the right way", and I would assist them in turning around and climbing down legs first. It only took a week or so, and then I could just say "go down the right way" and they'd turn around when climbing down off of anything. They also go downstairs "backwards" like this (except recently when they decided that sliding down on their bottoms was more fun <_< ).

I think that PPs are right that you can't stop the climbing 100%, but if you teach her how to get down safely, it might give you a little more peace of mind.

 

I have no advice because I am in the same spot as you, except my first was also a climber. I thought it was bad with her, but Alex has got to be part mountain goat because I don't even know how he climbs half the stuff he does. Even worse is that once he climbs something Niko will then follow right behind him. I bought one of those interlocking gates to use as a play area for outside. I figured it would keep the boys safe, while my older ones are swimming and it would let me watch all four. Alex climbed out in less than 3 minutes and fell on his head. While I was checking him over, Niko started to make his way over.

At this point, I am trying to keep out family room safe by removing what I can. I also have a giant playpen that I put him in if I need to be out of view for more than a few minutes. We jokingly call it baby jail, but he can't climb out and it gives me a safe place when I need to put laundry away or I need to give my attention to one of the other kids.

 

My girls are both part moutain goats as well and we just removed a lot of things that they could climb on. Now that they are older they understand when I say 'We don't climb on ______'. I agree with teaching her the right/safe way to get down and hopefully that can alleviate some possible accidents. Good luck! I keep thinking I should sign the girls up for rock climbing or something, they would be pretty good at at.

 

Both of my girls were climbers. In fact, they began working together to climb higher...I was always catching them holding something still so the other could climb on it. To this day they love to climb trees or anything that they can get a leg up on. It's very nerve wrecking, but nothing that I ever put them in time out for, I just don't think they understand at that age. However, I tried to keep them in eye's view as much as possible and just kept redirecting them. Like pp said, if you got climbers there is really nothing much you can do but just keep reminding them what their boundaries are. I also taught mine the correct way to get up and down on things just so they knew how to get off of stuff and not get hurt. Since they loved to climb the couch so much, I would just set up lots of pillows and blankets around the couch and let them climb to their hearts content (me being with them of course). That helped to get some of it out of their system. Good luck, it's a fun stage!

 

Jude is a Rachael sort of girl. She just figured out the couch and chairs last week and now I am petrified. She climbs window sills, the toilet, etc. Granted, I am there but stunned. I warned the sitter not to leave that child for 30 seconds without securing her or taking her with. I blame DH who mountain climbed his whole life until a couple years ago. Zoe tries but isn't there yet. But, Zoe will step on Jude to gain a higher place to reach the couch. My biggest fear is that I think Jude is about to conquer the crib, and I don't know what is going to happen from there. DH decided to start teaching Jude how to get off of the furniture, which is okay, but my worry is in her climbing she bounces around and right off onto the hardwood floor. She doesn't stop at the first level of the couch, she climbs on top of the back of it. Of course, she is thrilled and this is currently a great game for her to taunt us with. :headbang: