NanaKim

It’s not only the parents who need to think about baby proofing the house. The grandparents need to get on board too. We have experience in this of course but here is another opportunity to get updated about what is available. Your own children may have researched some good ideas that were not even on the market for us.

I picked up a lot of outlet covers at the local thrift store in a bin that also contained cabinet locks, oven locks, louvre door locks and a strap that allows a door to be held open (for my cat to go in and out) but not wide enough for a baby to squeeze through. I never got round to shopping at an actual store, I had plenty. Grandpa got onto the job of anchoring bookshelves to the wall. We just knew that our grandchild would be tempted to climb on them.

Meanwhile, my tech savvy daughter and son-in-law were online shopping for some of those things but also giant boxes that fit over an outlet, especially useful for where a lot of devices are plugged in, making it more difficult to yank on the wires and get into trouble. Honestly their whole entertainment area with it’s strip outlet was placed behind a baby proof fence. Speaking of fences, we all decided on baby gates to block off the stairs. Theirs were more sophisticated with built in cat doors. Their coffee table’s pointy corners were covered with gel like protectors. A falling head might still get bruised but unlikely to get a cut, which can be pretty scary on the skull because it bleeds a frightening amount!

So what were we seeing to create this flurry of shopping and installing? All the work of tummy time paid off as our granddaughter became comfortable enough on her tummy to begin pushing herself backwards on the wood floor. She was good at rolling from back to front too. At first, she could only move backwards, which was exciting for her but she couldn’t see where she was headed. Sometimes she backed herself underneath the changing table and without forward traction, she just couldn’t get out. The next step was building arm strength and being able to push up into a sitting position. Here, she could look around, rotate herself to a new direction, lie down on the floor, roll over to her front and head off again. She made a shorter sequence by using her hands to turn her body without sitting up. Gradually her legs began to come into play. She tried different movements including holding one leg up in the air, but that didn’t get her very far. All of this work was quite tiring and took her back to taking three naps a day instead of two. She practiced different arrangements of her legs while sitting, different ways of getting to the floor and then moving by rolling from place to place or using her arms to pull herself. Finally, her legs obeyed her commands and she was commando crawling everywhere, picking up speed every day. You could see the pleasure of her new found freedom.

This was all so different from her mother who bypassed crawling and went immediately to walking. At that time I was babysitting an older child who could already walk. My daughter was enraged seeing this little girl able to follow me around and so she forced herself upright and tottered along precariously, not quite in control and heading for disaster like someone’s first, terrifying attempts on the ski slope. My heart was in my mouth, but she succeeded. However, I later learned that crawling is foundational to fine motor skills and indeed, my daughter did need to put in extra practice there. My sons were not under any pressure to walk and enjoyed their crawling much more before deciding to be upright. Looking back to my own childhood, I do remember my sister had her own way of getting around instead of crawling. She sat on the floor and scooted around on her bottom for a long time. It was very effective and she was delighted with it.

What do you remember about your own children crawling? What are you seeing your grandchildren doing? Do you have a y favorite baby proofing recommendations?