How to teach her to go down stairs?

[MartiesMom2B]

Martie loves climbing up the stairs. She could do it all day. I'm trying to teach her to go down the stairs, but she'll just step off the step as if she was going to step on level ground. So then I put a gate up about 2 steps up so that she could practice safely. She's fallen twice. I'm getting so frusterated. We're buying a soft n' wide gate that will close off the entire stair area, but I can't have a child who doesn't know how to go down stairs.

TIA!!
Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[egoldber]

I taught DD to go down the stairs backwards. She did that for a LONG time.

HTH,

[JulieL]

Me too. I think it's the safest way for beginners.

[brubeck]

I tried to teach both kids to slide down backwards. DD never learned it and never wanted to. DS didn't learn it from me, he picked it up accidentally when he slid backward after crawling up one day.

I was successful in teaching both kids to sit on the step and slide down on their bottoms while holding onto the bannisters. When they got tall enough this naturally progressed to walking down the stairs. Both kids were walking up and down the stairs by 15 months (of course I should point out that being REALLY tall like they are helps).

[Karenn]

Sonia,
Colin is just now learning how to go down stairs on his own. He did the go down on his tummy thing for a long time! (Part of the problem is that the stairs at our house are just plain treacherous. An architect friend of ours told us that our stairs are actually illegal to build now because they are so dangerous.) He also is pretty short, and I think Helen's right, that does make a difference.

Up until recently, he was just like Martie and would step off stairs as if it were level ground. The most helpful thing was leaving him with my parents for the weekend. Their house has several places with just 2 or 3 stairs. Apparently it took both my parents sitting on the stairs and reminding Colin to slow down as he approached them and hold the hand rail. I guess they did this over and over again. They tell me they spent A LOT of time on this (as in hours!) but it seems to have worked! Honestly, I'm not sure I would have had the time to devote to it! The gates are still up here, and probably will be for a long time, but he does know how to go down the stairs now and will stop at the top of them.

[Momof3Labs]

We taught Colin how to get off our bed first by teaching him to "turn around" and then he could slide off easily on his belly. We use the same "turn around" reminder when he is at the top of the stairs, ready to go down. We have a flight of 13 hardwood stairs, ending in ceramic tile, so I won't be removing the baby gate anytime soon, and I'm too nervous on those stairs to encourage him to walk down on his own right now.

[mharling]

I've been working with Lane for a little while to get him to go down the stairs. I would turn him around to come down backwards and for a while, he would just go up (and then, of course, laugh at me). Something just clicked with him this weekend and he did it! He did it backwards most of the way, but every once in a while would turn around and do a stair or two on his butt and turn around again. He's gone all the way down about 3 times.

I don't have any magic suggestions for you. Just give her lots of chances to practice! Do you have a single stair somewhere? There is a single step down from our front entryway into the living room and Lane figured that one out a while a go. I'm sure this helped him figure out the big stairs.

Mary & Lane 4/6/03
[link:www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b370a2992536|Birthday Pics!!]

[MartiesMom2B]

Martie has been doing the same exact thing. Going up when I'm trying to teach her to go down. I'll just keep on practicing?

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[mharling]

Yep!! You could also let her practice getting off the couch or your bed.

Mary & Lane 4/6/03
[link:www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b370a2992536|Birthday Pics!!]

[Sarah1]

We're still working on this too. DD has NO interest in scooting down backwards, despite my efforts to teach her. I'm making only minor progress getting her to scoot forward on her bottom (like Mary was saying Lane does). One of our problems is that we don't get a ton of practice--the stairs we have are not actually in our place (we live in a condo on the top floor of a walk-up--almost four flights).

Yes, those are four flights of stairs up which I have to CARRY this child who HATES to be held. I love our place, but these stairs are killing me!

[JElaineB]

I tried to teach DS to go down backwards, or to go down forwards on his bottom. But he wanted nothing to do with that. He sees mommy and daddy walking down frontwards holding the handrail, so that is what he wanted to do (and did it one day himself and fell halfway down the stairs! :() So he walks down the steps frontwards, one step at a time, with me holding one hand and his other hand on the handrail or wall. The past couple of days I have been trying to let go and let him go down himself for a couple of steps. He seems to like the security of holding on to me though, and doesn't want to let go yet. Or if he lets go he climbs back up the stairs and laughs. So I guess I will be helping him down the stairs for a while longer.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

edited to fix typo

[MelissaTC]

Had the same problems with Matthew. And it irked me that his little friend at one year's old could walk up and down the stairs like you or I!

I have learned that they will do it in their own time. You can teach them but when it comes down to it, it is really up to them. There was a study done like this with twins. One was shown how to do it; the other was left alone. They eventually both did at around the same time...