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Home › Articles › Home Safety Issues › Toddler Ups and Downs

Toddler Ups and Downs

Teaching Tots to Use the Stairs

By Sue Poremba

Pages:  1  2  3  

Stairwells Are Not Created Equal
My daughter loved to scramble up and down the well-carpeted staircase that led from our living room to our front door. They were wide, soft and a comfortable climb for her little legs. However, she refused to go near the steps at my grandparents' farmhouse. They were steep, narrow, hardwood – and intimidating!

Obviously, your toddler will need to learn to use the stairs in her own home, and because she is there every day, she will eventually get used to them. But show patience when she has to manipulate unfamiliar stairs. It is a new adventure for her.

Up on Safety
The stairs are one of the most dangerous places in the house. Forty years after it happened, Sheila Callahan from New York, N.Y., vividly recalls her own tumble down the cellar steps, and it isn't a fond memory. A spill down the stairs can be terrifying and can result in serious injury.

Toddlers are naturally curious and love climbing, but because their heads are large in proportion to their rest of their body, they struggle to find balance. That's why toddlers tend to be wobbly on flat ground. To the adventurous toddler, stairs are Mount Everest, there to explore and conquer.


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