What to do when they start climbing on the couches

My dynamic duo has started climbing and standing on the couches all.the.time! I can't watch them all the time, I have a house to clean, dishes to do, laundry, not to mention we're leaving for a 3 week trip to canada in 10 days and I haven't even started packing!

My 8 yr old is very good at watching the kids while I'm busy, but he's constantly yelling "No Liam, get down! Rylee SIT! Stay off the couch!" :lol: Poor babies are going to develop a complex, and Sean's going to get sick of "babysitting" soon!

I've been trying to teach them to get down properly, lay on their tummies and slide off, but they still like to stand up on the couch. I have overstuffed couches so it's easy for them to lose their balance on them and fall off.

Any tips/tricks?? :FIFblush: I'm grasping at straws I know, but it's not possible for me to stay in the living room with them all day long, nor is it possible to move them, we have a very small house, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and interconnected living room/dining room/kitchen. My dining room and kitchen are already supergated off so they can't get in there unattended.

 

My guys do the same thing, and it honestly drives me bonkers. I actually don't mind them standing on the couches so much, but it's the standing on the *back* of the couches to look out of the picture window and leaping *off* of the couches that give me heart attacks. Nate jumped off this weekend and turned his ankle. I felt bad for the little guy, but part of me was like "told you so"... (He was fine BTW; there was no swelling and he only favored it for a little while then went back to playing).

Really the only thing I can do is redirect and encourage them to do something else. ardon: The bigger deal I make about them sitting, the more they stand up and jump on the couch. :gah: You could try telling them "sit or I will remove you from the couch", but this will take a lot of your time, watching them and correcting them every time they stand.

Sorry I don't have any great advice. Maybe you could try a ScatMat? :tomato: J/K! :laughing:

 

:laughing: that's PERFECT!!! :lol:

Well Rylee has fallen off both the ottoman and the love seat today. I finally put the big pillows off the love seat onto the floor in front of the seat for now, it looks horrible and messy, but at least if they fall it'll be onto the pillows and not my laminate hardwood floor! :headbang:

Valerie I don't mind them being up there either, it's the inevitable "crash""bang""thud" that bothers me! <_<

 

I found it impossible to keep them off so I made sure to make it safe. I removed the cushions and put them on the floor right in front of the couches. When (not if) they fell it was not as far and they had something soft to land on. I also removed or moved any coffee or end tables so when they fell they would not hit their heads.

 

There are only two options if you can't watch them every second -- either keep them away from the couches altogether or make it safe. Since it sounds like gating off the couches is not a viable option for you, I would vote for pillows all around.

One other thing that helps eventually (though it requires frequent/constant intervention at first) is to provide something they ARE allowed to climb/jump on. We had an old mattress on the floor in their room that was the "jumping area." If they tried to jump on anything else, we would say "No jump on the couch -- jump on the mattress" and carry them to it.

We didn't have anything for them to climb on, but they were never big climbers anyway (lucky for us).

 

This is what I have done for the past few months because I was tired of saying "no", "stop that" or something similar.

We have NO furniture in the living room except for bookshelves (which they thankfully have not thought to climb up ...yet) and one small table where I keep diapers and supplies.

It's just easier this way for us. Yes, it means we all sit on the floor (feels like wilderness camping all day, everyday) and when guests come over there is much awkwardness about where they should sit. Oh well.

Honestly, I don't know if I can recommend removing your couches and chairs/recliners as we did, but it worked for us.

 

I just plain gave up! And the "bang" "thud" still happens... I will say-at 2 years and 8 months, the joy of jumping on the couch has pretty much ended! It was a longggggggg phase-and they only had two bad falls-and those were both recently(within the last say three months). And both of them fell off the arm of the couch. We did have a coffee table in the living room, in front of the couch, that we replaced with the ottoman. Nicholas has a scar right on his eyebrow from falling and hitting the corner of the table, and Anthony narrowly missed as well. We wanted to keep Annabella safe from that!

Good luck! :laughing:

 

It's important to decide what you will allow them to climb and let them practice on something. The desire can be very strong.

With my boys, I let them climb on the couches. They fell off a couple of times but mostly, they decided it was fun to jump off. It just about gave DH a heart attack every time they'd take a flying leap (he was so sure they'd hurt their legs) but it was better that they played their games on soft couches over soft carpet than most of the other places they'd discovered to practice their climbing skills. When they turned 2, I put up a monkey bar dome in the living room and redirected them there. And now, I can't keep them out of the crepe myrtle. It never ends.

 

So far putting the pillows on the floor in front of the love seat has worked. They can climb up that in a flash, and at least they don't get quite as hurt when they fall off!

Thankfully my couch cushions are a little bit higher, so they can't get up there yet, cause I am NOT removing all my cushions from it, then I have nowhere to sit! :lol:

No coffee tables here either, we got rid of ours with our first son, but they do like to climb on the ottoman, it's when they bounce on it on their knees that they tend to topple off!

Twinfinite there is no way we could get rid of our furniture, that would require selling it, and we simply can't afford to buy new stuff in a year or so! :lol: I am very glad that we bought overstuffed furniture though, at least it's soft when they call on it!