Crawling Has Become an Issue

[daycare]

Ok, please don't think I am crazy.

my group consist of children 2-5, mostly filled with 3-5 year olds.

we have a decent size play space, in addition to other spaces. unfortunately it has to be left wide open, this is where we nap too.

Our rule has always been walking feet inside, or sitting down on your bottom. There is not enough space to lay down play or crawl when everyone is in the room. So to create the consistency, we have just kept the rule of walking feet or sitting in this room only.

Because it is not set up for crawling, crawling is NOT safe in this space. I broke my finger last year when I came out of the other room and tripped over an unexpected crawling child, fell over them (luckily I didn't land on them) and landed on my hand.

At pick up time this has become a huge issue. YOu all know how crazy the kids get when parents are here and of course, we had a child who was crawling knock over another child and they hit their head on a shelf. Luckily it was just a bump.

lately, they are crawling very fast all over the place and we have had 3 kids get hurt just in the past month.

I can't help but feel crazy for now having to add another rule like no crawling, because this is how children in this age group play.

suggestions of how I can curb this. The only thing I am doing now, is allowing them plenty of outside time to crawl and run as they wish.

[daycarediva]

Do you have any area rugs? I allow crawling on one area rug only.

[daycare]

the only thing is, is that i have 12 kids in this room, there is an area rug, two of them.

one is a huge circle time rug and the other is a door mat type for walking in.

either way, even if I could let them, I don't have room for 12 crawlers.

[daycarediva]

ugh! that stinks I have no advice. I only have 6 so I let 2 at a time crawl on our circle time carpet.

[daycare]

ugh! that stinks I have no advice. I only have 6 so I let 2 at a time crawl on our circle time carpet.

hmm that might work. and if we know they are crawling there,, we will expect it.

is that what you do? you say you can crawl here only?

[AmyKidsCo]

Can you rearrange so there's more room to crawl? The forbidden fruit is sweetest, but if it's not forbidden anymore they'll probably lose interest.

[daycarediva]

hmm that might work. and if we know they are crawling there,, we will expect it.

is that what you do? you say you can crawl here only?

Yes. Anytime I recognize that I cannot stop a behavior that isn't in itself BAD, just creating issues, I allow it with limitations.

"You can crawl on the rug only. Only two friends at a time."

[daycarediva]

And yes, exactly. I eliminated the power struggle and at the same time, the danger and annoyance of all 6 kids crawling around (mine are either playing some kind of animal or babies, so nothing 'bad' is really happening.)

I can then warn the other kids, "Sue and Joe are crawling on the carpet, watch out for them please."

(same with dancing, we do it on the carpet)

[kendallina]

Can you rearrange so there's more room to crawl? The forbidden fruit is sweetest, but if it's not forbidden anymore they'll probably lose interest.

This is what I would do too.

[daycare]

This is what I would do too.

I wish I could, but to meet QRIS standards I can't. I'm going to work on the idea of one carpet is for crawling. I'll see how that works out.

Thanks for all the ideas. I hate having to take this away but can't afford anyone getting hurt.

[rosieteddy]

When I had this problem I rearranged the room.I rearranged it so crawling was no fun.Think table sticking out ,train table in middle of room ,bookcase with blocks into open space ect.If you could walk I did not let them crawl.I also had rugs to visualize different areas,car-truck rug,kitchen play area rug,reading area with comfy spots to look at books.Even special area for blocks.It worked great.

[Alwaysgreener]

How about crawling time? Have everyone crawl around at a set time to burn some engery.