to have stair gates with 7yo and 5yo?

[aristocat]

AIBU to still have stair gates with 7yo and 5yo?
We have got one downstairs but this is only used to stop the cat coming upstairs at 4 -5am instead of 7am.

The gate upstairs is purely to stop DCs falling downstairs at night/while in bed - it is always open in the daytime!
I wondered how long other MNers keep them for?

Will i still have it when they're 16?

PinkTulips - both our cats are very very lazy and rather dumb! I remain grateful that they have yet to circumvent the stairgates!!!

YANBU.

My DS's bedroom door is right next to the stairs. He is nearly 3 and if he sleepily went right rather than left comning out of his room he would fall straight down the stairs. So I will be keeping my stairgate up for a while I think.

Also, the gates don't stop my very fat cat getting up and down the stairs. He is too lazy to jump over but will slowly squeeze himself through the side, (it is the wooden extendable kind of gate with a bit f a gap at the side). So he leaves a lovely black grease make on my wall. Nice.

Dd (3) has one on her bedroom door otherwise we have a nocturnal wanderer who lifts eyelids to see if we're awake which is very unnerving. But they'll disappear as soon as dd ditches the nighttime nappies and needs to get up in the night. But I don't have cats to factor into the mix and anything for an undisturbed night so YANnecessarilyBU.

Whatever works for you really, but after 3 kids with a ten year spread I was quite keen to get rid of the "baby paraphanalia" so can't imagine having stairgates with children of that age.

A large number child accidents are caused from improper use of stairgates by over 2's , that's why they say on the instructions do not use for over two year olds!

I don't use stairgates, ever, and I am a childminder, Ofsted are happy with that too. I teach them to use the stairs safely as soon as they are mobile.

I think 5 and 7 are to old for stairgates. I think they would either be able to open it or otherwise climb over it which would be more dangerous than not having one. I know we stopped using stairgates when my youngest was about 2 as the older ones could open it and a friend of ours had a 2 year old who manged to climb the gate and then fell and broke her leg.

thanks again ladies..............gates have gone and ok so far

I never had any with DC1, have one to stop DC2 getting into the kitchen when Im cooking but its only shut when oven on.

Just leave them up. You'll have grandkids soon enough

we only have one to the kitchen from the lounge-diner - to keep DS3 (2 1/2yrs) out. Will keep it there probably for another 6-12 months then take it away.

oh also have one of those static barrier ones on DS2/3's bedroom door to contain the same said DS3 when he wakes up in the morning/'after he's gone to bed - otherwise he goes into DS1's room and wakes him up/rips books/

DS is 5 and DD 3 and haven't had stairgates for about a year I think.

I do think it depends on the individual 'risks' in your house ie layout, kids' behaviour. It's not about whether your children are 'old enough' or 'sensible enough' to manage stairs (of course they are!), but whether a stair gate could prevent disaster. My sister fell down the stairs when we were about the same age as your kids because we were messing around at the top. She was in hospital for a week with a fractured skull.