HELP - turning into a nervous wreck!

[Harmony83]

Okay guys how do you do it!!! DS has just become mobile his now crawling/dragging himself all over the place, only problem is he seems to find all these small things to put in his mouth, that I can't see or don't notice! And his also trying to go from crawling position to sitting position and so many times his fallen backwards and wacked his head (he has a little bruise on his head from doing it on the tiles!) Everyone tsk tsk's me because I race around trying to be near him in case he falls over, they basically say his going to get lots of bruises and bumps and he needs to learn, but his only 6 1/2 months!! How did you guys all manage this!! Should I just leave him be??
His also started to try pull himself up on furniture, he did this the other day but fell down taking out his nose on the way down!!
I'm turning into a paranoid mummy!!! My poor baby is going to be covered in bruises... :confused:

[Lallas' Mum]

It is perfectly natural to be worried about the safety of your child and it's a good thing you are. Yes, they are going to have some falls and knocks here & there, but I always believed if you can prevent it from happening then do so. The trick is to let them do things on their own so they develop and learn, but it never hurts to be within cathing distance. I used to put pillows and cushions on the floor behind bubba - not to hold him up or anything just so he had a soft landing pad. Concussion is a serious matter.

As for little things on the floor - I used to miss things all the time as well. I found regularly running the vaccum over the areas Bub plays helps pick up little things and it also helps bring to your attention the little objects you may not have noticed.

You can only be there to guide them, and if people tsk,tsk you for wanting to prevent bub from hurting themselves then let them be. At least you care enough to help avoid the bumps and bruises. Just bare in mind that you can't always catch them in time. We do the best we can.

Take care and good luck as bub becomes more mobile.:rolleyes:

[ThomasMum]

Maybe we could order our kids astronaut suits with pads and all over for their “exploring” gears? He he just kidding.

We are in the same boat, Harmony83. Thomas just had his license to crawl the other day, and man he’s on the go! He's our additional vacuum cleaner now, because if we missed the spot vacuuming, the chance is he will pick these “unidentified” objects and straight to his mouth! Doh! :o

And we bought a small hand-held vacuum cleaner so that we could always vacuum his fave spots.

And yes they always go to the weirdest spot; yesterday he jammed his bottom to the couch, he cried because he couldn’t move! No bruises so far though, because our house is fully carpeted except the kitchen, balcony and bathrooms…

Now that he’s on the go, my advice would be start to set a rule, saying “no no” to our little one in gentle and fun way. So far Thomas has been good, whenever I said “no no” to him he stops doing it…but of course another time he totally ignores the words lol. Too cute!

Don’t worry about the “tsk tsk” comments, people tend to forget where they came from, I'm sure they used to be the worse terrors too! LOL

Enjoy the parenthood! :cool:

[flower]

Harmony...I went out and bought those foam mats that fit together like a jig-saw that come in the coloured alphabet and lined my place from a*** to breakfast time with them. Not very spunky but there's a bit of head cluncking going on at this time. (Not now for me though..the phase lasted about 4 weeks..).
And you begin to baby proof..that is removing absolutely EVERYTHING from the floor that a little one can put in their mouth. That means its time to get those covers for the electricity, the cupboards to be locked....bin secured...and have one eyeball on your child at all times. No, not very relaxing but what's the alternative?
O's mom.

[red crayon]

spencer hasn't started crawling yet but he loves to pull himself up to standing position. like o's mom, i've also got the very attractive foam mats that click together like jigsaws. they are very handy. the house we are renting only has hard marbly floors so I have to watch spencer because he's bruised himself a few times.

[JanetF]

I've always just made my house childproof so my ds could wander about in it unsupervised but safe. Anything he could eat/break/pull over/rip/damage/hurt himself with was just removed. I've never said no to him except in potentially dangerous situations and he's very gentle as he explores because we've been saying "gentle" to him since he was tiny and showing him what it means. If you childproof your house not only will your belongings be safe but your child will too ;) Those falls while they're exploring are scary at first but I found I got used to them. I used safe words to let him know he should be careful. He learnt to climb down things backwards but everything else he's managed himself. Babies are so smart! :D

[MonMic]

I good thing that I heard somewhere and that we did was to periodically get down on the floor at your babies height and look around because then you see what they can see and can get rid of any dangerous things.

Many things don't appear as ahazard as you are used to seeing them from up above everyday.

One of ours was all the potplants had to go outside.

take care as they grow as they get new access to things that have to go up higher.

You will get used to it and learn to anticipate what they are going to get into.
take care
Monica