All four of my children have just loved jumping up and down on their beds using it as some kind of wonderful trampoline that they can never get enough of. With the oldest two, I gave up having to tell them all the time, "stop jumping on your bed, you're just going to break it." This warning never works, no matter how stern I may look or how angry I may make my voice sound. Kids just cannot figure out that bouncing weights the size of children are not good for bed frames, especially those made out of wood. My bed breaking? That's impossible, just doesn't make sense. So after I came back from the fitness center this morning, feeling invigorated and healthy, I spent a large portion of the afternoon fixing Sabien's bed, whose left-side had split right down the middle of the wooden balk. I had already fixed it three years earlier, but even the four evenly-spaced thick screws were in the end not enough to hold back the incessant abuse of jumping kids. The only way to fix it was in fact just to strengthen it with a few more screws neatly drilled into the spots exactly between the original ones. Measure the distance and divide by two. I think it should hold out pretty well. At least until Sabien and Maarten become teenagers and decide to release their pent-up energy in more creative ways. So as you can see, I accomplished something very useful today, the day of rest, and I feel pretty good about it.
When my girls became teens their creativity on how to keep the bed supported worked so well, they continue the practice to this day....stuff as much junk as you can underneath (ie clothes, magazines, empty potato chip bags and pop bottles). Amazing!
I can remember my parents telling us not to jump on their bed -- my brother and I had bunkbeds which are, as you can imagine, incondusive to jumping-upon.
No matter how loudly my father yelled, no matter how many times he whipped us for doing so, we jumped on the bed. We seemed to know innately that the no-jumping-on-the-bed rule was, well, somehow wrong and to be ignored.
Of course, when we eventually broked the bed, we wished we'd listened to my father...
I meant "broke" the bed, of course, and not "broked" the bed. Though we probably did that, too.
Oh yeah, that's right, the parents' bed, I forgot about that one. Actually, our bed is by far the most favorite when it comes to jumping on. I fixed it about two months ago and removed all of the creaking sounds and squeaks, but I am afraid that the bed is loosening up again due to the usual secret abuse when the big bad parents are sitting downstairs.
My kids take the cushions off the couch and jump on there. My solution? I jump with them. :) (It's an old couch.)
I guess rather than forbid them all the time, I could encourage it by taking off the mattresses and putting them on the floor to jump on. Thanks for the tip! I would love to jump with them, but my kids are too wild and might (accidentally) break my back by jumping on it.
I remember my days of sofa jumping as a child. After watching the antics of the three stooges, I'd be inspired and jump on the sofa.
I never tried my bed, though. It didn't seem stable enough.