Anonymous wrote:All my baby wants to do is crawl, cruise, climb and explore. We live in an apartment and she's getting quite bored because it's so small.
I'm trying to find more places we can take her too that she can crawl around and explore. I live in NW DC, but I'm willing to travel outside of the city in any direction.
So far we've taken her to library events, the playground, and indoor playgrounds (like scramble and the children's museum).
The problem with the indoor playgrounds, is that they don't do a good job making sure the bigger kids don't enter the crawling baby area. She gets intimidated when they start running around, and doesn't want to explore anymore. I also have to constantly pull her out of the way to make sure the other kids don't run her over or accidentally hurt her. I would love a space that's just for kids under 3-4, or a place where the staff enforces the age rules for the different play spaces.
We've also tried the Toy Nest. I love it, but she's not into toys so much at the moment. She wants things she can climb on, and pull herself up to stand on, and explore.
The playground and library is fine, but since she's on her hands crawling around....she often ends up sick. I wanted to see if there were places that do a better job of cleaning/sanitizing the baby areas.
I know illness is unavoidable, but if you have any tips to reduce how often it happens I'd love to hear it! I wash her hands often with soap, and we give her a bath when we come in from going to the play places, but it doesn't help too much.
Whoever is being critical of this parent clearly hasnt had a kid in this age range recently. OP 100% feel you. This was a tough stage where they just wanted to move and put stuff in their mouths and the winter was hard.
Things that work for us:
- try the MoCO libraries too- Bethesda, Silver Spring, Wheaton. We went through a stage where he just wanted to pull all the books down, but it worked for awhile.
- The Silver Spring rec center has a indoor playground that is pretty empty usually. Free for MoCO residents, not sure on the cost if not a resident.
- National Children's museum has 2 areas for younger kids. Still alot of active ones around but if you go early they arent crowded.
- Little town in Bethesda is better once a bit older but has a few places for that age.