Please send help.

[rivka]

As Is Well Known, baby walkers are deathtraps. Babies who are too young to walk are too young to have that kind of mobility; they wind up falling downstairs, getting tangled up in electric cords and tipping the walker over, rolling themselves into a hot radiator, etc. etc. etc. We'd never have one in the house.

However.

Colin does not read baby safety advice. He has figured out that he can stand up holding on to a small table, child-sized chair, highchair, laundry basket, or even a large toy, and walk wherever he wants by pushing it in front of him.

For extra credit, he crawls up onto the top of our toy garage and then attempts to climb from there onto the furniture.

We are so very dooooomed.

Comments

[ailbhe]

We always had baby walkers - the push-along kind with slow-turning wheels, not the sit-in kind - because they tip over a lot less than the impromptu sort and Linnea stared cruising furniture competently by six months. On the other hand, we live downstairs, and have stairgates, and so on, because I was still holding on to furniture to help me walk when L was six months. I wasn't aware that push-along things were considered a hazard, in fact.

[eeyorerin]

I don't suppose reading him the baby safety advice would help either. Oh dear.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i have an unused roll of duct tape. you want i should mail it?

[sioneva.livejournal.com]

So far my kid's got the record amongst my friends for breaking a limb - 3 years, 3 months, I think? Hoping Colin holds out longer than that ;)

We had a plastic crate that we used as a side-table. Ciaran caught on VERY early that he could push it along to walk. I wouldn't worry about it too much, especially if you can make sure that there are more stable things, like a big plastic crate, for him to use for that purpose.

[jenett]

I was also not good at reading baby safety manuals, apparently.

The day my parents decided to get rid of the crib went like this:

- Mom puts me in my crib for a nap, and raises the side (and if I remember right, the sides were pretty high - a good 3.5 feet at least.)

- She lies down to read on the day bed in my room and falls asleep.

- Time passes

- I climb out of the crib all by myself, and then down, and toddle across the floor to the day bed.

- She wakes up to me tugging on her elbow, and manages not to panic. Mostly.

They looked at this, and figured that a bed was probably safer, all round, than my experimenting more with climbing.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I have no useful advice.

Does knowing that you're not alone (http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/7317316.html) help any?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware that push-along things were considered a hazard, in fact.

I don't think they are. Unless they are, for example, a highchair that is not meant to be pushed around from floor level, COLIN.

[ailbhe]

Ah, right, you were only talking about the sit-in baby walkers. Which, um, hinder development of walking, as well as being potentially dangerous.

If Colin really wants to get interesting, he can learn to undo the brake on the stroller and push it using the folding mechanism at the back. The wheels will turn really quickly and as he falls forwards the whole thing might fold up on top of him. Ask me how I know (we caught it just in time, but yeah).

Edit: We have this: http://www.vtechkids.com/product.cfm/Sit-to-Stand_Learning_Walker/479/

It is a good toy with no batteries, but kind of annoying with.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. -looks over at Rachel who is now pulling up and cruising along things-

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Laurel's been doing that for a couple of months... and she's only 10 months now.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Beka has recently figured out how to climb stairs (not how any of my cousins did it -- she stands in front of the step with her hands on the wall and lifts one foot waaay up to plant it flat on the step, then pulls herself up so she's squatting on it). In fact, I was a Horrid, Abusive Parent and let her fall OFF a stair today, because nothing we do to keep her away from them is working (we haven't yet installed a permanent, seriously kid-resistant gate in front of them, and she can now foil our temporary measure in less than two seconds), and I thought perhaps a few startling tumbles to soft carpet might scare her enough that she would, I dunno, QUIT IT.

She has absolutely no fear about flinging/rolling herself off edges of beds/couches/etc, either, which brings John and I nigh to heart failure regularly. If our bed were normal height we might let herself do THAT a few times, too, but it's quite a high one with storage under, so no.