Possibly flameful question about babies

[FastHands]

Ok, so DS is coming up on 11 months. He doesn't walk yet, but crawls all over creation and is of course very curious. My question is about what is fair to expect of him at this age. We have babyproofed insofar as things that would hurt him are covered or out of reach, but he still likes to go up and poke at outlets, and there are still things that HE could destroy (dvd player is the one that comes to mind). At this point, if we tell him "No" he immediately stops what he's doing, but he just looks at us and smiles, and about 70% of the time continues doing whatever we don't want him to do. Is he still too young to "get" this? Or just stubborn? I don't want to feel like I'm sharply correcting him over and over if he doesn't understand (and maybe I should just focus on moving him away from whatever caught his attention). But I don't want to just, say, stand in front of the outlet, when he should be learning boundaries. Thoughts?

Puppies are so much easier.

[speckledfrog]

Yes, 11 months is too young to follow a "No" command. Distraction and redirection will be your best friend for the next year and a half.

[Deleted]

My flameful is that I have baby-proofed nothing.

She doesn't get into much. Never has.

But she is observant. I feel like she would start poking and prodding at baby-proofed items that previously didn't interest her.

[gummybear]

Not flameful! I think correcting him at this age is fine. He is a little young to get it, but it can't hurt. Redirecting also helps. They are actually a lot like puppies

And as far as what to expect IMO it's entirely child dependent. My oldest is a consummate rule follower and would never do anything she's not supposed to, even when no one is looking. My youngest is a honey badger and gives no fucks and looks you right in the eye and keeps on doing whatever she pleases.

[FastHands]

Jul 7, 2015 22:46:50 GMT -5 gummybear said:

Not flameful! I think correcting him at this age is fine. He is a little young to get it, but it can't hurt. Redirecting also helps. They are actually a lot like puppies

And as far as what to expect IMO it's entirely child dependent. My oldest is a consummate rule follower and would never do anything she's not supposed to, even when no one is looking. My youngest is a honey badger and gives no fucks and looks you right in the eye and keeps on doing whatever she pleases.

Yeah I feel like he's a honeybadger. The SMILE he puts on when you tell him no? Omg it is a billion watts of cute. I'm like, "do you not understand that I'm correcting you and you're doing something you shouldn't... orrrr are you a sociopath?"

[FastHands]

Jul 7, 2015 22:45:27 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

My flameful is that I have baby-proofed nothing.

She doesn't get into much. Never has.

But she is observant. I feel like she would start poking and prodding at baby-proofed items that previously didn't interest her.

Yeah, we basically have plugged the outlets (after a kid at daycare taught him how much fun they are to poke. Punk.), and then every time he grabs for something that could cost him a limb, we go "huh. Should probably move the samurai sword to a higher shelf." That's pretty much it. It's not that he doesn't get into things, it's more that we really have to be next to him at all times, because our banshee dogs would accidentally bodyslam him.

[FastHands]

Your responses make me simultaneously happy, infinitely sad, and in need of a drink.

[sewpinkgal]

Distract and redirect. I mean, I still say "nope, can't touch that" as I'm distracting/redirecting, but I don't actually expect that he really understands it either. Hang in there!

::passes over a bottle of wine::

[Deleted]

Jul 7, 2015 22:54:43 GMT -5 FastHands said:

Jul 7, 2015 22:45:27 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

My flameful is that I have baby-proofed nothing.

She doesn't get into much. Never has.

But she is observant. I feel like she would start poking and prodding at baby-proofed items that previously didn't interest her.

Yeah, we basically have plugged the outlets (after a kid at daycare taught him how much fun they are to poke. Punk.), and then every time he grabs for something that could cost him a limb, we go "huh. Should probably move the samurai sword to a higher shelf." That's pretty much it. It's not that he doesn't get into things, it's more that we really have to be next to him at all times, because our banshee dogs would accidentally bodyslam him.

Chalk it up to intense curiosity, which clearly means he's a genius!

[franklin]

no i don't really think most kids that age get "no", but unless you're saying it to him constantly, it doesn't hurt to use in really obvious situations - i feel like they can pick up the sound of the word even if they can't internalize the meaning. how fast he can move and utilize/grasp things (fork, spoon, etc.) would influence my opinion on baby proofing. DS could get to an outlet when i turned my back for a second, when i saw him start crawling with a spoon i was all over the outlets. otherwise the only big things that concerned me was making sure someone was with him all the time if there was some type of water, even shallow water, and stabilizing larger furniture because DS loved to pull up on things.

[FastHands]

Jul 7, 2015 23:01:16 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

Jul 7, 2015 22:54:43 GMT -5 FastHands said:

Yeah, we basically have plugged the outlets (after a kid at daycare taught him how much fun they are to poke. Punk.), and then every time he grabs for something that could cost him a limb, we go "huh. Should probably move the samurai sword to a higher shelf." That's pretty much it. It's not that he doesn't get into things, it's more that we really have to be next to him at all times, because our banshee dogs would accidentally bodyslam him.

Chalk it up to intense curiosity, which clearly means he's a genius!

haha cleeeearly!

[rupertpenny]

We don't baby proof much either.

Bea is almost exactly a year older than your DS (they may be birthday twins?) and she still doesn't respond to no. If she's doing something dangerous and I tell her to stop she just says "Careful Bea!" like that solves the problem.

[bugandbibs]

They only thing we baby proofed with DD1 were outlet covers after she tried to stick a screw driver in one when she was 3.5. She was so good and never got into anything.

DD2 is a totally different story. We have magnetic locks and alarms on everything. She is into everything. Just tonight she was climbing the expedit to get paint when I came out from putting DS to sleep.

DS is 17 months. He understands verbal cues, but doesn't have the impulse control to always follow them. We use positive commands to redirect and gates around things like electronics.

[mandymay]

Jul 7, 2015 22:45:27 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

My flameful is that I have baby-proofed nothing.

She doesn't get into much. Never has.

But she is observant. I feel like she would start poking and prodding at baby-proofed items that previously didn't interest her.

All we did to baby proof for my daughter was cover outlets and put things up higher we didn't want her getting into. I can already tell my son is going to need everything baby proofed.

As others have said, redirection is the key. I don't know if it'll be the go to until he's much older, but at that age it works.

[ninjabridemom]

I would do outlet covers b/c they are at perfect baby height but other than that don't worry too much. We found baby jail to be more effective in giving them good safe spaces to explore.

The boys got no at 11m - as in, "mom is saying something, let's stop a second.....oh it's nothing, let's continue." Lol so don't worry about that. I'd do what pp did. Say no but redirect.

[vanillacourage]

Jul 7, 2015 23:16:04 GMT -5 Que? said:

Bolt all your furniture to the wall now. You'll feel better when someone inevitably posts something horrible relating to that. Cover the outlets and tie up your blind cords. Then you can probably relax, lol. We never did any cabinet locks or corner covers or anything. We just did what you're already doing; watch and move stuff as you go.

Oh god yes, bolt the furniture (all over the house). Beyond that, we found it easiest to gate his access so he could really only freely explore at random in our living room, and baby-proofed that pretty well. The other rooms, we'd just hang pretty close to him to keep an eye on what he was getting into.

[marcyiam]

Jul 7, 2015 23:11:43 GMT -5 farmvillelover said:

We never baby proofed anything with Noah either. He's always been a cautious, chill, rule following kind of baby.

Until he turned 3.

Now he's a honey badger.

The most we've done now is the outlet covers bc he keeps wanting to know "what is happening in there" and it freaks me out. I don't want him to electrocute himself.

I have nothing new to add other than oh my goodness how did you get to be 32 weeks already.  Wow!  And yay!  Lol.  How are you feeling?  

[FastHands]

Thanks, all! I'm not so worried about babyproofing, I was just starting to wonder if I should be trying different tactics to help him understand "no" or if it is still too early to expect that. Sounds like it's way too early, lol.

[underwaterrhymes]

The only things I am anal about are bolting furniture to the wall and making sure there aren't any accessible window cords.

And we have the chemicals locked up, but he's never alone in the kitchen anyway.

[Jalapeñomel]

Bolt everything to the wall...it's really dangerous.

Otherwise, D didn't care about NO until recently.

[psychmom]

He's 11 months... you expect nothing. lol

DS is almost 5 and it wasn't until recently I felt comfortable enough to not have outlet covers.

[cayl]

The hardest part of parenting for me has been the "when". When do we move from redirecting to actual boundaries and discipline, when do we focus more on learning things like their ABC's instead of just singing the song and playing with the foam bath letters. Stuff like that. It's all so kid dependent, but I don't want to be the parent with the little hellions because I didn't discipline soon enough or the parent who's doing flash cards with their 6 month old.

[knope2016]

Jul 7, 2015 23:11:43 GMT -5 farmvillelover said:

We never baby proofed anything with Noah either. He's always been a cautious, chill, rule following kind of baby.

Until he turned 3.

Now he's a honey badger.

The most we've done now is the outlet covers bc he keeps wanting to know "what is happening in there" and it freaks me out. I don't want him to electrocute himself.

3 year olds are the worst. THE. WORST. 

[MixedBerryJam]

Jul 7, 2015 23:16:04 GMT -5 Que? said:

Bolt all your furniture to the wall now. You'll feel better when someone inevitably posts something horrible relating to that. Cover the outlets and tie up your blind cords. Then you can probably relax, lol. We never did any cabinet locks or corner covers or anything. We just did what you're already doing; watch and move stuff as you go.

My kids are teens and I still do this! I just retied some yesterday. I think I can probably stop now, but now I hate having that long string just hanging down there, all flaccid like that.

[mushmouse]

11 months is the perfect time to bolt all furniture to the wall. The pulling up, the climbing, the yanking, the 'what's up there' is just about to start. And it isn't some random, rare freak accident that occurs. It makes me crazy when people thing the kid isn't much of a climber so they don't have to bother.

[papie]

Jul 7, 2015 22:45:27 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

My flameful is that I have baby-proofed nothing.

She doesn't get into much. Never has.

That was me when I had Anna.  I miss those days. 

Alex is a completely different story.  OMG.  I'm considering getting ALL the babyproofing things that were ever invented, lol. 

To answer the OP, you can't expect them to listen to no before age 2-2.5. 

[lilac05]

I think at 11 months, most babies understand the word "no". They know they're doing something they're not supposed to do. What they DON'T often know is what they should do instead or how to modify what they're doing to be more acceptable. At 11 months, I did lots of redirection!

Kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for...good & not-so-good!

[ninjabridemom]

Jul 8, 2015 7:28:18 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Bolt everything to the wall...it's really dangerous.

Otherwise, D didn't care about NO until recently.

Oh yeah, definitely that.

We use L brackets and it is a lot easier than trying to do the strap thing. It works better/ I feel safer w it in our lath walls too.

[Yankees21]

My almost 16 month old shakes his head back and forth and grins when we say no...pass me all the booze!

[FastHands]

Jul 8, 2015 8:08:02 GMT -5 cayl said:

The hardest part of parenting for me has been the "when". When do we move from redirecting to actual boundaries and discipline, when do we focus more on learning things like their ABC's instead of just singing the song and playing with the foam bath letters. Stuff like that. It's all so kid dependent, but I don't want to be the parent with the little hellions because I didn't discipline soon enough or the parent who's doing flash cards with their 6 month old.

You get me!