When did you take your stair gates away ?

[ahnostairs]

I've just removed the bottom one because it was always becoming loose anyway and my almost two year old was always opening it and then playing with the gate - opening and closing it.
I am keeping the one at the top indefinitely.

But the bottom one being gone is so nice for us. But the boy keeps climbing up to the top of the stairs and I'm worried he'll fall.

When did you let your child go up and down the stairs alone ? He can go up fine, although I do prefer to still be behind him and I just don't think he's ready to go down on his own either.

My DD is 4 and we had removed the bottom gate around a similar age but she wasn't as interested in going upstairs alone.

Stress !!

5 and allow 3 - still have it to keep the unwanted trips upstairs by youngest one or friends kids, babies upstairs.

My child just worked it out, we never used them

Never had one at the bottom.

Still have one at the top. My son is 3, but tbh I always always supervise. He’s never attempted to go downstairs on his own the morning because either he’s in bed with us or he comes in to wake us up first.

Never used them. Two flights of stairs.

Just supervision and taught them not to use them. Never had an issue

They are 9 and 4 now

Dd is nearly 2 and we haven't thought about removing them.

When my then 2 year old sheared the metal frame apart on the bottom one. He was the size of a 3 year old at the time and very very strong.

We've never had one at the bottom, but the layout of the house means they're never there unsupervised really. The top one came off when I realised I never shut it anyway - I think DD1 would have been just 2 then - and went back on when DD2 learnt to crawl. But it depends on your child - DD1 was very competent with stairs and also preferred being where I was so would tend to wait for me if she wanted to go down anyway.

Word of warning, when it went back on for DD2, DD1 would have been not quite three, and could open it. So at some point the choice may be taken away from you!

Thanks for your advice. I'll apply the same concept to crossing busy roads and handling knives as well shall I?

I think it was around the time they turned 3.

The one at the top of the stairs stayed longer, purely because our upstairs landing is really small, and we were scared of them catapulting out of a room and flying straight down the stairs.

Around 18months when my dd kept trying to climb over it.
Then I got new ones when the kids were around 6 and 10 as I got a puppy!

Stopped using them but kept them up when my eldest was 2 as I was pregnant so didn't see the point in taking them down. Removed all when my youngest was four, the downstairs one hadn't been used for a year but upstairs was due to sleep walking. Still use one on the bedroom door at grandparents as the door is right in front of the stairs.

Downstairs it was on the living room door as the layout of our house meant I couldn't see the stairs if I was in the kitchen.

About age 3

Only had one at the top, never at the bottom. Was mostly about nightime wandering.

I'd look at the instructions on your stair gate - most say they're only designed for use with children up to 24 months of age. That is also the ROSPA recommendation.

Have a gate across DD’s door (3.5) because our stairs are super steep and we have a tiny square landing between the 2 bedrooms - you can step directly out of her room onto the top step. She can navigate stairs in general very well and she is careful around them but I don’t particularly want her sleepily wandering out of her room in the middle of the night and mis-stepping straight down the steps.

We didn't have a stair gate (just always went up and down with our son. He was never unsupervised) but we did have a gate across the little corridor inside his bedroom. We took it away last month when he got tall enough to climb over it 🙄 It's completely buggered his sleep unfortunately but he doesn't attempt to wander downstairs or anything.

We also never used them but did put a gate on bedroom doors until around age 3 to prevent nighttime wandering.

Never used them. Just taught them how to navigate stairs. Never had an issue.

I had them on their bedroom doors similar to pp however my youngest was houdini and could open them so he’d let himself out of his tool then set his brother free too. Also taught to come downstairs on tummy, have 4 kids so we kept doors shut whilst downstairs I had a kitchen diner and could see the living room from it so kids were contained. But honestly just do it when you feel they are ready, what worked for me or someone else isn’t going to work for everyone. The gates on doors worked better for me until boy wonder worked out the clasp,

We removed ours when DS was 14 months. Could belly glide down by 13 months and had a month of buffer!

We keep one at the top of our stairs because I don’t trust sleepy children not to fall down them

We've never used them on the stairs (2 & 4yo with more on the way). There's a gate on their bedroom doorway but they just climb over it if they want. It's used more as a deterrent.

My 2yo DNephew fell down the stairs after the gate at the top of their stairs gave way, so after that I've never felt the desire to have anything there.

I'd say knives, yes. Roads, no. Cars have come very very recently in human history so are different to heights and sharp things which we have evolved with.

I remember ours said 6 months as a minimum, what was I meant to do with a 5 month old then!?

I hardly ever used one because they couldn't reach door handles as toddlers so i just closed the sitting room or bedroom doors and that stopped them. I briefly had one at the top of the stairs when eldest was about 3 and able to reach bedroo. door handle, he occasionally went to loo at night and bathroom was close to top of stairs, he was always barely awake when he went and i was worried he'd trip and fall.

A 4 year old should be fine during the day though,

Ds is 4 and we managed to never use one. Until he was fully stable on his feet he was always in eye sight anyway.