unhappy re stairgates...

[happybunnyme]

Mil wants ds (17m) at her house but wont get stairgates as it will 'ruin' her decor....

Our sil has told her to use a pressure attached stairgate rather than one you screw to the wall and has given her one that she doesnt use (its for the top of the stairs!)

My understanding is that the pressure fitted ones are not safe for tops of stairs as;

• the bottom bar of the frame creates a tripping hazzard
• they can fall down when pushed against

Its not my sil whose child will be affected (mil goes to their house) so im pissed off she got involved.

Aibu to insist on a safe gate or refuse her having him?

Wow! I bet that sign off left her feeling like she was all high and mighty but actually just reads as petulant.

The bit about defensive posts supporting her argument in particular. Proves she probably hasn't been reading things right. Defo nothing like that article posted by dingalong but why would she when it's not wha she wants to hear.

If only she had said "I take what everyone is saying on board but I don't feel comfortable with that set up" she would have been gone and dry.

*home

Reminded me of this...

Ooooooh how goady! OP good luck dictating to your mil what you want her to do to her own home with your 'my way or the high way' attitude, especially when she is doing you a favour. I await your subsequent thread lamenting about how you have no one to watch your child when you're in labour.

chewbacca that reminds me of my staircase where the spindles are wide enough for my youngest to squeeze through and get up the stairs. Has to tape it up with industrial strength tape and cling film. Looked lovely!

Wow, you're accusing the majority of posters on here of being complacent and irresponsible parents and our parents the children's dgps of being very lucky nothing awful has happened to our DCs. Then you accuse people of insulting you . My DCs and five DGCs have all grown up safely to adulthood/teens respectively. No child gates in common use when my DCs were small and l didn't use them at the top of the stairs when my DGCs stayed or visited. I did make sure to always keep doors shut which accessed staircase upstairs and down when my DCs and DGCs were in that room and had high door handles meaning they couldn't be reached by said child until old enough to manoeuvre stairs themselves. Oh and guess what - l watched them!! at least to the point where l always knew which room they were in and any doors leading to stairs were shut. Oh and my career before l retired ...... l was a TUC Health and Safety officer and later trainer.

My niece and nephew- year apart in age - used to have "riding competitions" on the stairgates on their bedrooms! This when they were 3 and 2!

Oh and as Stewiesmum pointed out as with all safety equipment there are risks purely from the safety equipment itself. As an earlier poster said when falling downstairs with a safety gate you are going to get added injuries from the gate. A child falling from the top of one having climbed up it is more at risk of serious injury than a child that falls down stairs without a gate (They generally roll down and escape unscathed) A child falling from the top and hitting a gate at the bottom( if for example top one left open) is going to land on it and be injured worse than simply rolling off the bottom stair. That's before we get onto finger trapping, clothes getting caught in one pulling parent or carried child back etc. So no complacency here OP, a full risk assessment has been applied and l like many other posters decided against

OP, I had a proper screwed-in safety gate and dd knocked two teeth out by tripping over her feet and falling onto it. Blood everywhere.

Now could you please tell me if I am ignorant or educated- I really need to know.

So, to all those who think iabu and that pressure gates (or no gates!) are fine at the top of stairs...i'm glad nothing bad has happened and i hope this continues for you.

Actually, OP, you're wrong on the latter. I have one stairgate at the bottom of the first flight of stairs. That's where DS2 (14 months) is supervised most loosely. He's never alone on the other floors, except when sleeping when his bedroom door (high handle) is closed.

He's a climber. A stairgate at the top of the stairs could make us more relaxed about supervising him, without reducing risk to him. His particular speciality is dragging items he can turn into steps to aid climbing. Instead, we've put a lot of effort into making him safe on the stairs, which he is frankly brilliant at. (He's a backwards slider/bumper. He is frankly baffled by the idea that he might go down a slide backwards. But then, we taught safe climbing/dismounting from about 9 months.)

With DS1, we had a fixed gate at the top of the stairs, because we moved there when he was 18 months and not so used to stairs, and was a much more cautious personality anyway.

But DS2 is much, much safer without a top stairgate.

Don't let your ignorance get in the way of other good points.

We don't have a top stair gate either. A neighbour's toddler flew down the stairs head first when she leaned on the gate and it came away. Luckily she was ok but the family were very shaken up by it.
We just have one at the bottom. DD could manage the stairs from about 18 months but I don't want her going up there unsupervised and rummaging in drawers, putting things down loo etc!

We don't use stair gates as our stairs are too wide & the banister starts on the 3rd step. As soon as the kids could crawl we taught them to go down the stairs on their tummy. As they got older they walked down holding the banister. My second child has been walking downstairs without the banister from about 18 months & my first was probably the same. My mum has curved stairs & she knows to go on her tummy. I think the best thing is to teach them to do it safely. I might just have been lucky but neither of mine have fallen downstairs.

cory just think, she might have flown down the stairs and broken more than her teeth.

Honeybunny - I'm a health professional advising parents on matters such as this and so have to be up to date on the latest evidence and research.

The most up to date train of thought is that stairgates are NOT SAFE at the top of the stairs full stop! Wether they are pressure mounted or screw fitted.

The risk of a child pushing a pressure mounted safety gate over is minuscule however the risk of a child climbing over the safety gate is much much higher, in fact most children achieve this by the age of 2 years. A gate at the top of the stairs means they fall from a higher height and therefore is more dangerous.

Instead the advice is stairgates at the bottom of stairs and supervision upstairs or gates on bedroom doors.

So rather than judging other parents and being condescending perhaps educate yourself?

middleclass I did that too - aged 18 months. Dad had extra fixings added so it was much harder to open. Took me 10 minutes to work out.

Upon hearing this story, OH built a gate for our stairs out of wood and installed a door handle mechanism in it, but with no handles. The square pin was on a string up high, where DD definitely couldn't reach it.

Lol sounds like Wallace and Gromit!

@catchingbabies finally someone with precise and upto date knowledge.

Boom CatchingBabies great info

At his age, assuming he sleeps in a cot, there is no need for a gate at the top of the stairs. Use a pressure fitted one at the bottom to stop him going upstairs. When he upstairs, he is probably in the bath supervised or in a cot, playing on the landing. If he sleeps in a bed, gate his room instead.

Ah, good to hear the facts. So, no stair gate at the top is the preferred option and that pressure fit gates at the top are in fact equally dangerous as screw-fit gates - for climbing reasons rather than that they will be pushed of the wall by the tiny child. Problem sorted.

I wouldn't put a pressure fit at the top of the stairs either, for both of the reasons you mention. I had pressure for elsewhere and the instructions all said not for use at the top of the stairs unless the wall cups were screwed in (therefore not being just pressure fit) and it being fitted below the top step so the bar wasn't a trip hazard

pressure fit gates at the top are in fact equally dangerous as screw-fit gates - for climbing reasons rather than that they will be pushed of the wall by the tiny child. Problem sorted.

The equally is entirely your own invention - good effort!

You don't get to tell your MiL what to do in her own house.

Find someone else to look after your DC or accept the way she wants to do it.

Not really Brollsdolls' invention, Jassy: that's the natural conclusion from CatchingBabies' post. She describes the risk of pushing a pressure gate over as "minuscule".

I await your subsequent thread lamenting about how you have no one to watch your child when you're in labour

This! Bloody hell, the OP takes PFB to a whole new level! 😂😂😂