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intentionally falling, advice, tips?

rslhmgrslhmg member
in Special Needs
We are still working to get dd evaluated, so I have no idea if this is related or just typical toddler behavior, but it has me concerned. She recently started standing on things and intentionally falling off them. She thinks its hysterically funny the harder she hits the floor. It started out with her walk and ride dinosaur toy, which is about 6 inches off the ground, we have tried redirecting her, sitting her on it properly and encouraging safe play with it, different punishments, and finally put it up where she can't get it. She stopped for a couple days and then almost gave me a heart attack today, she climbed on the coffee table and intentionally fell off. She got on it I told her to get down we dont play on it, and had my hands out to grab her and she went the other way. Our coffee table is about a foot and 1/2 off the floor, she landed pretty hard, got up and started laughing. We have tried everything we can think of to discourage the behavior, but she just seems to be getting more daredevilish with it. She's my first, and we never had this kind of behavior with dhs boys so I have no clue if this is typical behavior for a toddler or part of whats going on with her. I am totally at a loss about what to do, we don't want her to get hurt, but nothing we know to do to stop the behavior is working. Anyone have any advice??
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Re: intentionally falling, advice, tips?

  • kcisthebombdotcomkcisthebombdotcom member
    I feel your pain. I have an attention seeker too. Her former MO was taking off her pants and peeing on the floor but its recently changed to intentionally falling off her toy horse she got for Christmas. Kids with sensory issues are under responsive to pain--that's definitely the case for my dd. since she's unlikely to get hurt from falling off the dinosaur, I'd probably give that to her so you can ignore her when she does it.
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  • rslhmgrslhmg member
    Her developmental specialist believes she has a sensory and/or mood disorder. He referred us to a group with behaviorial specialists and psychiatrists, we're just having a hard time getting an appointment for an eval because of how packed their schedule is. The coffee table bit is new, but she started doing it with her walk and ride without anyone around. The first time she did it, I was coming out of the kitchen just in time to see it and she wasnt aware I was there until she was back up trying it again.
    We will try giving the dinosaur back, hopefully she will stick to falling off that. Its nice to have her laughing, she tends to stay very flat emotionally, I just have a hard time not worrying she will get hurt.
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  • rslhmgrslhmg member
    The flat affect and family history. She did have a fairly mild outburst at that appointment, but went back to totally emotionless after it was over. I'm not totally sure if that was part of his concern there could be a mood disorder or not though. Between mine and dhs families we cover almost every mood disorder that I know exists, that was definitely part of his concern about a mood disorder.
    Honestly, the more I read up on sensory disorders, the more I feel like thats whats actually going on. I dont want to jump the gun and get a diagnosis set in my head, but so much of what I've read about it describes Dd almost perfectly.
    Also, I didn't really think much about this before, I just thought we got lucky and she stopped. Dd has almost completely quit banging her head since she started this intentionally falling. The comment about head banging got me thinkong about it.
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  • mommy0411mommy0411 member
    My sensory seeking kiddo does this as well. I find putting him on the trampoline really helps satisfy that need and he does the falling bit less. He is also less sensitive to pain and really only reacts when he sees me react.


    DS1: 4/15/2011
    Dx: ASD, SPD and receptive and expressive speech delay at 21 months
    BFP #2: CP 5/2012
    DS2: 4/24/2013
    BFP #4: Miscarriage at 5 weeks 7/2014
    BFP #5: 8/8/2014 Due 4/20/2015 
    Its a healthy girl!!!!! 
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  • rslhmgrslhmg member
    @Mommy0411, do you have a small indoor trampoline or an outdoor one? We're in an apartment so a big one isn't doable atm, but if its one of those small ones we will have to give it a shot. We gave her back her dinosaur, but dh said he caught her in the act of intentionally falling off the coffee table again while I was at work today, we definitely don't want her doing that since she's likely to get hurt that way.
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  • funchickenfunchicken member
    I know several people with those small indoor tramps with a handle bar. That might be a good way to redirect her jumping off of inappropriate things. My older DD was a jumper, but she's actually over-responsive to pain, so that phase didn't last very long.
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  • mommy0411mommy0411 member
    rslhmg said:
    @Mommy0411, do you have a small indoor trampoline or an outdoor one? We're in an apartment so a big one isn't doable atm, but if its one of those small ones we will have to give it a shot. We gave her back her dinosaur, but dh said he caught her in the act of intentionally falling off the coffee table again while I was at work today, we definitely don't want her doing that since she's likely to get hurt that way.

    We have a small indoor one. We used to have it outside but with it being winter we moved it inside and my son loves it! It actually has a net around it as well.


    DS1: 4/15/2011
    Dx: ASD, SPD and receptive and expressive speech delay at 21 months
    BFP #2: CP 5/2012
    DS2: 4/24/2013
    BFP #4: Miscarriage at 5 weeks 7/2014
    BFP #5: 8/8/2014 Due 4/20/2015 
    Its a healthy girl!!!!! 
    Lilypie Pregnancy tickers
    Report Reply
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