BABY CRAWLS AND CLIMBS

A QUESTION FROM A READER:  HOW TO TEACH BABY TO CLIMB

We received a question from one of our readers in New York:  “How can I teach my daughter to climb stairs?  She started crawling one week ago.”  This is a great question.  Thinking about the next motor skill baby will learn and how to approach it is very important.  Of course the immediate answer is to let her develop her crawling skills for a few weeks first.  Crawling is a significant motor milestone achievement for baby.  It requires much more strength, alignment, and coordination than previously learned skills since she is balancing and locomoting on the four small points of her hands and knees.  The action of crawling will strengthen her muscles and bones substantially.  Baby needs to gain a bit more strength and develop more confidence before attempting to climb.

THE COORDINATION OF THE MOTOR SKILL OF CLIMBING

After a few weeks of crawling, baby is ready to learn the motor skill of climbing.  You can see in the above photo how the position of climbing stairs is very close to the position of crawling.  The four points of both hands and both knees are in contact with the stairs/floor.  The difference between the motor skills of climbing and crawling is that climbing involves the upward or downward movement in addition to the forward and backward movement.  Think of climbing as crawling with moving the legs/arms up as you climb up the stairs and down as you maneuver down the stairs.  This additional up/down movement requires a longer balance on the remaining three points in contact with the floor and a more advanced coordination with the arms and hands.

A SET OF INFANT STAIRS AS A TEACHING TOOL

A set of infant stairs is a very helpful teaching tool.  Each stair is about half of the height of an actual stair like you might have inside your home.  Once baby masters climbing the infant stairs, she can conquer the grown-up stairs in the home.  Where do you get a set of infant stairs?  You have to build them yourself.  I will try and put some instructions up on stellarcaterpillar.com sometime in the next week.  If you have stairs inside your home, please keep your safety gate up!  Baby should only climb stairs when closely supervised.