hardwood floors & sitting/crawling

[beansmom]

My DD Skylar is 4.5 months old and beginning to sit and in the process of learning to crawl (we think!). However, we have hardwood floors throughout our home and are ambivalent about having her learn on such a hard surface. Currently, she's using her Gymini (with a folded wool blanket underneath) and our bed for tummy time, rolling around & "swimming". We would hate for Skylar to bonk her head or other body parts on the floor as she experiments with becoming more mobile. :( Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

TIA! :)

[firefly]

throw rugs :confused: ;) we're a hard wood floor family too... blankets and rugs have been our savior

[RyeRye]

I used these foam mats:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000067QXC/qid=1126043663/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-7854812-5456766

[BooeyJ2]

I would get some large area rugs :)

[lady1297]

We have hardwood, no real problems. Although he did better learning to crawl at my moms and once he learned, he did fine on the hardwood. Yes a few bumps and bruises, but he did fine.

[ezl247]

We have hardwood floors throughout our house. My DD did OK on them and learned how to crawl at 8-9 months. She did have a few bumps along the way but no more than at my parents house who have carpet. If you are worried you may want to buy area rugs.

When she started to cruise there were some problems because her push toys went to fast on hardwood and she could not keep up and fell more often than not. But all in all I am happy with wood floors because of the easy cleanup and beauty of them.

[Candy]

Our house is all tile & hardwood floor. We have this (http://www.ourmats.com/al1226.html) for DD in her playroom.

http://www.ourmats.com/images/al1226.jpg
I bought it at Walmart for $15

[maggieb]

We have hardwood floors throughout the entire house...no carpet anywhere and DD who is now 21 mos, did fine. A couple of bonks here and there, but nothing major. We do have area rugs in most rooms, but she crawled and scooched throughout the whole house.

[Renrel]

We have hardwood floors thoughout as well. There are large area rugs in the living room and bedroom. We got the foam mats for the den/playroom and that was where DS did most of his practice sitting and crawling. But you will find that as far as getting mobile kids are creative. Our son did a scootch with one leg kind of dragged along as away of avoiding knees are hardwood, we saw a couple yesterday who baby get around with hands and feet on the floor but butt way up in the are with a straight leg, and he can move fast that way. He was on a playground with that soft foam flooring and he was going back and forth with ease between walking/toddling and this fun kind of a crawl. This kid is building some really strong arm muscles. I also met a mom a year ago whose kid just rolled everwhere. She would roll the lenght of a room and cry for mom to turn her so she could roll the width of the room.

And while you do want to be careful, especially early on, about head bumps, kids do learn by getting small bumps. For example, crawling under a table. They will bump their heads a few times and then understand that then need to keep their heads tucked down and that lesson carries over to other places where they crawl under stuff. So be protective but not overly so.