My friend told me if I’m worried that Zara may fall from bed, I might as well teach her how to get down, so she won’t fall any more. I took the advice and for the last 1 week plus, have been teaching Zara how to get down from the bed and sofa.

I had always warned her to ‘stop’ when she reached the edge of the bed, so that part was easy. I then have to tell her to turn her body when she’s reached almost the edge, and guided her body at the same time. Then I told her to go down ‘bum bum first’, held her bottom, and guided it, until her feet reached the ground.

A training session will go something like this :
Put her on the bed
“Zara come down, come to mummy”
She’ll start crawling towards me.
When she’s about to reach the edge, “Stop! Be careful”
She’ll stop
“Now turn your body” guide her body to turn
“Good girl, now bum bum first” guide her buttocks and legs
“Now slowly slide down, be careful”
When her feet reached the floor, I clapped and cheered for her “Clever girl! Hip Hip Hooray!”

A lot of guidance and few close accidents later, she surprised us by perfecting this over the weekend.

Here is a video of her doing this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOOuVMsHRc] 

As for climbing up the bed, I never taught her, but fueled by her own interest, she did it anyway.