Common questions parents often ask their therapists are: “When should my child climb or take the stairs?” and “How can I help my child go up and down stairs safely?”

Climbing stairs sounds like a nerve-wracking exercise, but it’s actually a great way to keep your kids safe. It is important to teach children how to climb and descend stairs properly, especially when they encounter stairs in different environments.

• Make sure there are safety gates on the stairs, especially when teaching children the proper way to go up and down stairs.
• Initially, start practicing a few steps at a time before tackling the entire staircase.
• Learning how to go up stairs is easier than going down.
• Once your child has mastered walking three or four steps, you can practice on the full set of stairs.
• Always stand behind your children when they go up the stairs for optimal safety. When going down the stairs, stand under and slightly to the child’s side.

stair climbing milestone:

• one year: The children began to climb the stairs.

• two years: Toddler begins walking up and down stairs using a non-alternating step pattern with the help of a hand held or handrail
• three years: Children begin to walk up the stairs using an alternating stepping pattern without handrails and down the stairs using a non-alternating pattern.

• Four years: Children begin to use alternating stepping patterns up and down stairs without support.

Always remember that every child develops at their own pace and they may reach these milestones at different ages.

Tips and Tricks to Encourage Stair Climbing

1) Step stool: place a step stool For elevated surfaces. Have child walk up to the step stool to reach the toy placed on the surface. Then have them turn around and step down with hand-held assistance as needed.

2) Sit and stand: place step stool In front of a raised surface, have your child stand up to retrieve the toy. Encourage your child to push the lower body and trunk musculature through the legs without upper body support.

3) Bike kick: This is a fun exercise for kids that helps strengthen the leg muscles, abdominal muscles, and body awareness. When the child is lying on their back, grasp the ankles and passively move the legs back and forth, as if they were riding a bicycle. Sing a song while pedaling to keep kids engaged and entertained!

4) Single leg balance: When children go up and down stairs, they must be able to balance on one leg in order to carry the other leg to the next step. When your child is playing with a toy on an elevated surface, sit behind the toy and lift one leg off the floor for 10 seconds, then repeat with the other leg.

To challenge your child, you can have them stand balance plate or pillow and perform the same leg raise.

5) Ladder negotiation

• place a sticker or tactile footprint Help your child develop a reciprocating movement pattern on the stairs.
• Verbal commands such as “one two” or”step by step“Can help promote alternating feet when going up and down stairs.

If your child has difficulty alternating feet with visual cues, stand under your child, support their hips, and help them shift their weight so that they are less burdened when going up and down steps.

6) Sensory strategies for climbing stairs

• touch: Use haptic elements on each step (tactile footprintfelt cutouts, fine-grain sandpaper) let the child go barefoot to reinforce the foot position
• Hearing: Use auditory cues to build a clapping rhythm, Whiskor song
• Proprioception: Have the child stomp to provide depth input and promote full weight bearing
• Visual: striped brightly colored tape Can help encourage feet to alternate on step stools, stairs, or any other surface.

Other ideas:

• soft stairs Great for little ones to practice crawling and climbing, and can be part of a playroom obstacle course!
• If you don’t have stairs in your home, use two exercises step stool Placed back to back!
• Walk up and down the curb nearby.
• Practicing stair climbing in your neighborhood (playgrounds, libraries, shopping malls, restaurants, and friends’ houses) will help spread the skill in different settings!

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