to have got upset.....

[woodforthetrees]

today....in-laws who are generally lovely grandparents were looking after dc's. I walked in to find my fil walking up the stairs behind DD (13 months) who was making her way up . He got to the top and she went onto the landing. He then sat at the top of the stairs on the top step facing slightly forwards as I came in (I can see straight up our stairs from the door) and then DD turned round and decided to head back down the stairs facing forwards (!) - fil wasn't quite paying attention but I could see what was going to happen so I shouted up for him to catch her.

I was really really upset. I appreciate that it's a good thing to teach children to get up and downstairs but maybe not now at this age - she's a complete liability at the moment and needs a close eye. FIL is a bit clumsy at times and I'd just rather he's not the one doing that with her.....

I just said "please don't let her go up and down stairs it's just a bit dangerous".

They were then shortly going - mil gave me a slightly tight lipped look (she was standing in the hallway playing with DS) we passed the time of day for 5 mins whilst they got their stuff. They then left and I burst into tears.....and called DH.....

I've had a few issues with them recently - nothing to do with the DC's and it's probably a build up of little things which are causing an atmosphere and may have triggered my reaction. They're not horrible people but I felt worse about the fact that they made me feel bad for shouting for my fil to catch dd....I was also a bit shaken about it.

I've probably not explained myself very well......but hopefully you can see what I mean

+YANBU to shout out, it was fear and a reflex action, but that said I don't think 13 months is too young to start teaching children the safety of going up and down stairs.

My DD started crawling at 7 months, and had mastered the stairs by 9 months. So we had to teach her to do it safely. Simply teach her to sit on her bottom and to come down the stairs on her bottom.

Yes, you can put a child gate on, and indeed we did use that, but the little bleeders always seem to be able to spot the one time that you have left it open, so in the end we concluded that it was safer to use stair gates and to teach the child to go up and down the stairs safely. At 13 months, your child is not too young to learn this. My child learnt this at about 10 months. After all, it only takes one person not to click the stair gate properly...