hardwood floors and learning to walk.

WannaBAmama

Hi. My son is still a little guy but we are seriously thinking about doing our whole downstairs in laminate wood flooring (kitchen, great room,  dining room, etc.) basically our entire living area. I'm a little hesitant just because of my son crawling and learning how to walk on it. The only areas my son will be able to walk on carpet will be the upstairs hall and bedrooms.  Anyone here have their entire living area done in hardwood, laminate, or some other hard surface? How did your LO do with learning how to crawl and walk on something other than carpet? Thanks!!

ncbelle

Our whole downstairs is laminate - kiddo had no trouble crawling or learning to walk on it.  He never even had trouble in sock feet which kind of surprised me a bit.

WannaBAmama

ncbelle:

Our whole downstairs is laminate - kiddo had no trouble crawling or learning to walk on it.  He never even had trouble in sock feet which kind of surprised me a bit.

thanks. do you like your laminate?  any complaints about it? My husband wants real hardwood but I think we're going to go with the laminate. I figured Wes would always have to have the rubber bottomed socks if we get it done lol.

rynhales

Our entire downstairs is laminate wood as well. She learned to crawl and walk just fine. It's all she knows.

ss+el

Our entire house has either wood or tile and he's never had any trouble with it.

arizonamama

We have tile throughout except in the bedrooms. B did fine with walking and crawling. In our living room where he spends most of the time we have a large area rug and I set up some foam play mats. Everywhere else is just tile. I normally don't have him wearing socks either so he has more traction and wont slip.

GonnaBMrsBell

We have laminate floors in our entire downstairs.  We love our laminate floors, they are easy for spills, when food goes flying at dinner time, and easy to clean!  Our DD did fine learning to walk and actually her first steps ever taken were on the laminate floors with socks on.  We did notice that she had much better traction with rubber grip socks on than without, but we still never had any major falls!  I say go for it and remember they are only "beginnning" walkers for a short time!

eris1995

We had carpet in our previous house- but now have hardwood just about everywhere.   Sometimes if he's in socks that don't have the rubber bottoms he'll slip and slide a little - but other than that he has no trouble walking.

amstep

We added a little comfort and cushion by buying two packs of 2 x 2 foam mats that are supposed to go under exercise equipment (one side is primary colors, the other dark gray) and set DS up with an area where even if he fell, it wouldn't hurt.  Total, we probably have a 10 x 12 area for him.  Kept all his toys on the mat, so he didn't really have a reason to wander at first.  Worked great.  (Oh, and now we use half of them under the exercise equipment, so it wasn't a wasted purchase).  We got them at Sams Club for maybe $24 a pack? 

Also, we kept him in Robeez-type shoes when it turned colder and he couldn't go barefoot, instead of just socks.  They kept the socks on, and the leather bottoms were great at gripping.  Caused way less falls than socks alone, even the non-skid ones.  Plus he kept banging his big toes on things, and this helped cushion that.  

ncbelle

WannaBAmama:

ncbelle:

Our whole downstairs is laminate - kiddo had no trouble crawling or learning to walk on it.  He never even had trouble in sock feet which kind of surprised me a bit.

thanks. do you like your laminate?  any complaints about it? My husband wants real hardwood but I think we're going to go with the laminate. I figured Wes would always have to have the rubber bottomed socks if we get it done lol.

I LOVE it and want to do the rest of the house in it as well.  It's easy to clean and holds up well to two dogs and a kid ;-)

We installed ours ourselves and it was pretty easy even though neither of us is very handy.  DH did kiddo's room in an afternoon on his own.  I love real hardwood but we aren't going to be in this house long so it wasn't worth the investment for us.  Plus laminate is more durable and less maintenance.  

purplepuggles

we have all hardwood except an area rug in our main living room. DS did just fine. i did have to make sure he had socks with traction or was barefoot, because otherwise it is slippery, but he is doing awesome. learned to crawl and walk on this floor no problem.

boo-bitz

Our place here is wall to wall hardwood and lino in the kitchen/bathroom. I buy Madi socks with grippys and hard soled slippers so that she can get better traction.

Ironically she learned to walk better and faster I think on the hardwood than on our carpet at the old place.

lauren&matt

Never had an issue and our entire downstairs is hw.

She was crawling at 5 1/2 months and walking full time at 13. 

brandonsfuturewife07

we had oak hardwoods, and DS took quite a few tumbles, but he's none the worse for wear.

he busted up his face on the sidewalk once, and his lip on the coffee table, but never really hurt himself on the floors.

Buckets of Moonbeams

we have oak hardwood floors throughout the entire downstairs.  it didn't make a difference in K's walking.

PhilsWife07

DS learned how to walk find on our hardwood, but my personal opinion is that hardwood and a baby sucks. DS has fallen and hit his head so many times on these floors, each time way worse than it would have been on carpet. Not to mention the noise level when he throws his toys around now that he's older. We're considering carpeting over the hardwood in our living room, just for while we have little kiddos learning how to become steady on their feet. Just my two cents. If I were going to put down hardwood, I'd wait until my kids were a little bit older.

keg

We have hardwoods all over our house except for some area rugs here and there and an area of foam mats in their baby jail.  They do just fine with the hardwoods and don't seem to notice if they trip and sometimes fall on the carpet transitions.  They generally wear Robeez or sleepers with grippy feet on.

citygirl_

We have hardwood floors throughout our downstairs and I had a very, very early crawler/walker (5 months crawling, 9 months walking).  If you are concerned, just get an area rug or something for him to "practice" on ... or do nothing at all.  Babies learn quickly.

Sora.Aoi

He had some pretty hard falls when he was learning to walk.  And at that time I wished we had carpet.  Now he prefers to play on the hardwood instead of the large area rug we have.  He likes how his toys make different sounds when he taps them against the wood.  Check out engineered hardwood.  It's basically hardwood bound on top of composite wood (I think).  So it's not solid hardwood but has the look of hardwood.  We got it at Lowes for the same price as carpet and it's really durable.

kla111304

Our entire downstairs is hardwood.  No issues between that and the carpet upstairs.  Just get some grippy socks or let them go barefoot.  Our dr said barefoot was best because of all the nerves in the feet.