To wonder if anyone with small children has carpets downstairs?

[boringbeigecarpet]

Ours is permanently stained with food, despite this DH won’t give way to wooden flooring. He likes carpets. I think he’s mad. Does anyone with little children have carpets in communal areas?

Wooden floors through the house here. Used to have carpet but black so it didn’t show anything, it was amazing! Far prefer my wooden floors though. We have carpet on the staircase only and it’s fuckin minging and I don’t even know why!!

We had a cream carpet in the living room - was fairly new down when we bought the house so just left it. Then got a dog and had a baby 😂 i felt it just always looked grubby. Toddler eating snacks, the odd vomit whatever I was fed up of it. We got LVT put down and it's so much better! Much easier to vacuum/sweep and mop really quickly and general toddler mess is more manageable. We've got a nice big rug down. I do miss the feel of carpet downstairs but it looks better and definitely easier to maintain with kids/pets imo

Some of you are extremely unlucky with carpets. We have carpets in living/dining room and have survived two DC.

We had a huge plastic mat or put towel down when they were in highchairs.
If they snack in living room or want a 'picnic' lunch we pop a large towel down.

Despite nappy explosions neither has managed to get that on the carpet.

Shoes come off at the door.

I run hoover round twice a day and have carpet cleaner spray on hand as a precaution.

Professionally cleaned each September when the room gets repainted for winter.

I couldn't have hard flooring both DS love rolling round the floor playing and I'd of no doubt had injuries galore by now.

We have carpet in our lounge diner and a 3 year old. It's fine! No stains at all.

Personally I don't like carpet at all so we don't have any except on the stairs. I can't imagine having to police kids crayons and markers .im thinking potty training and kinetic sand and painting. Its funny when I think about it i don't know anyone with carpet downstairs but I'm not in the UK .

@switswoo81

Personally I don't like carpet at all so we don't have any except on the stairs. I can't imagine having to police kids crayons and markers .im thinking potty training and kinetic sand and painting. Its funny when I think about it i don't know anyone with carpet downstairs but I'm not in the UK .

Crayons/markers/kinetic sand/painting etc are all done at the kitchen table so no need for policing. I’ve potty trained 3 children here and always made sure to do it in the summer so we’re mainly outside!

Crayons/markers/kinetic sand/painting etc are all done at the kitchen table so no need for policing. I’ve potty trained 3 children here and always made sure to do it in the summer so we’re mainly outside!

Same here.

Fair play to you (not meant with any sarcasm at all). My second was a nightmare to potty train and piddled everywhere and only yesterday the oldest was running out after getting a pack of bubbles and spilt them all over the floor.
I do accept our clumsiness as a family though especially me.

I'm actually thinking about wooden floors upstairs as well as downstairs!

I think buy a cheap fleece blanket from Amazon, you get really large ones for ten or twelve quid, shove it on the floor when you’re feeding your child.

Is someone sitting right next to them when they are eating? It’s unusual for them to throw food that much to be fair.

Our two seem to have destroyed our house so I can’t imagine carpets downstairs would have worked for us. We’ve got wooden floors and I can’t decide whether I like them or not. I would prefer some form of tile I think that would be easier to keep clean with steam mopping.

I am however a bit narked that we took the advice to get leather chairs/sofas as easier to maintain. I haven’t found that to be the case really. Maybe fabric would have been worse or my children are messier than average but none of our stuff as worn well.

Food only at a table. If they're that messy they are usually in a high chair and wearing a bib with a towel under the high chair. No wandering around the house with food. No food in other rooms if they can't eat without making a mess. Never had a problem. Adults spilling red wine is another matter

We have light carpets in 2x living rooms, downstairs office. We have hard floors on corridors and kitchen. Ours aren't stained. Shoes off at door, hoover daily, most food at kitchen table.

We have a carpet cleaner but don't use it that often.

Yep carpet in our lounge/dining room. Absolutely hate it but not worth changing it as we don’t plan on being in our house for too long. We put a mat down when our DD eats as she’s in the chucking food stage and we usually hoover twice a day because of crumbs. Not ideal

My dc are grown now, but we've always had carpet.
Much prefer it.
Mind, we've always eaten at a table. Like others, I can't get my head round not having a table.
I've never had food thrown all around, and before I'm asked, I've no perfect dc, but when they are in the high chair, you put the highchair on a wipeable surface, and once they are at the table, they surely shouldn't be throwing food?

Definitely had carpet everywhere except kitchen and bathrooms - but then nobody ate anywhere except the kitchen table. If you don't have one - that's making carpets a bad choice.

We rented for 9 years, had cream carpets everywhere, even the dining room and downstairs bathroom! They were absolutely rank. Food stains, paint, god knows what.

We bought the house in the end, now we just have carpet in the living room and we don't allow food in there anymore. (We have a playroom with hard floor where the kids can eat/make a mess) So much better.

Vinyl in the kitchen/ dining room.

The awful cheapo laminate was gleefully ripped out of the lounge within 6 months of moving in. A second baby and a decade later and it's a little worn and flattened by the doorway but otherwise good nick. No stains.

The hall still has 30+yo original carpet which is dated but functions well.
Some of the orginal laminate fetish persits in some of the lesser used rooms in the house but our old room was demoted to a spare room and a room used for DCs was changed to carpet when we did it up.

Carpet is warm and soft and means we don't have to wear shoes in the house all the time. DS and I have struggled with foot issues like planatar fasciitis in the past year and hard floors are too painful to walk on bare foot. The boarding under the vinyl has enough spring to be comfortable enough.

Moving into a house with mainly hard floors was horrible. They were permanently cold, slippery and headache-inducing where they reflected spotlights back. Not homely in the slightest.

Us. It's an old house with wonky floors. We intend doing something about them at some point but in the meantime we have carpets everywhere apart from half the kitchen and bathroom. The carpets have held up reasonably well through potty training x 2, play dough, paint and baby led weaning.

My children don't have food away from the table, so no issues.

If you're giving kids wet foods then letting them wander about the house smearing it about you're basically asking for a messy carpet. They can surely sit at the table to eat.

We only eat at the table but lots of reasons why it's helpful to have wooden floors downstairs throughout:

• things like playdoh
• being able to bring a pushchair inside and not have the wheels muck up the carpet - both of my kids were pushchair napper
• potty training - kudos to those who had no accidents but we definitely did
• to be honest, spillages for us, we only eat at the table but we do have tea/coffee/red wine etc and would totally mess up carpets

@boringbeigecarpet we don't have a kitchen table but there's enough room for a high chair and me on a stool with dinner on my lap, it's not forever.

We have carpet in our living room and dining room. We haven't changed them since we moved in and they aren't carpets we particularly like but we thought it would be better that they get stained and then change them when the DC and Ddog are older. DH and I both prefer carpet to wooden floor, but we have wooden flooring in the hallway so it can be easily cleaned from muddy footprints.

Yes. Prefer carpets to cold and slippy hard floors. Slightly shocked your carpets are stained. Don't you eat in the kitchen?

Just only allow children to eat at the table. Very simple solution and good manners too.