Teaching a toddler how to get down stairs?

[Ginismyfriend]

DD (16m ? walking for a couple of months) loves climbing stairs, and can smell an ungated staircase from a mile off. She?s very good at crawling up, but when she reaches the top she goes to throw herself face forward down the full flight every time. I?ve been trying to practise getting down safely by sliding down on her tummy backwards, but is this the best way of doing it? And if it is, am I being overly ambitious in thinking she can get her head round this yet?

We managed getting off chairs safely by spending an hour getting on and off and turning it into a game, but this isn?t stopping her lemming-style leaps into the abyss from the top of the stairs. I don?t plan on letting her attempt stairs unattended for a good while yet, but would feel much better if I thought she had a rough sense of how to do it? Any advice appreciated!

Apologies for all the question marks!

DS is 21m & we have never had stairgates. I'm of the school of thought that you teach them. Just do what you did with the chair, keep asking her to turn around. She'll get it.

DS has been able to go up & down unaided for AGES.

Mine did it on their bottoms, so sitting up and sort of shuffling forward and down on to the next step. My dh called it 'bumpity' and said it as they hit each step which they seemed to think was hilarious, but it did help them get the idea to go one at a time rather than hurl themselves down.

Tummy backwards and bumping down on their bottom both good. When DS1 was your DD's age, I thought he would never survive stairs - he used to step off the top one, holding his arms out trustingly that I would be there to catch him. Fortunately I was, and he is now 4, and perfectly capable on stairs.

We had/have stairgates (younger siblings), and taught them too. Depends what your stairs are like and how distracted you tend to get as to what you do with stairs. I think encouraging/reminding them to come down a sensible way is all you can do, and eventually they get old enough for it not to be an issue (apart from me bellowing NO RUNNING ON THE STAIRS a couple of times a day...)

We did the same as savoy except we called it 'boinging' so you said 'Boing!' when you hit a step. Worked with 3 DCs so far! We took our stairgates off after we caught DS climbing over the one at the bottom of the stairs at 19m. He's 2.3 now and has only ever fallen down a few steps. Mainly because he was concentrating on something else! :o

we did a similar thing except we boringly said/say "step!" or "steady!" as he steps onto each step - cor I feel dull now - and the facing forward sit-down on your bum onto each step was the best way to learn, as he also just used to try and step out from the top step as if he had wings... we don't have stairs though, so we had to take learning staircases where we could get 'em, so he was slower to learn how to do them safely than some. he's 25m now and loves to bump himself down nanna's stairs over and over and over, or walk down the big stairs at the park saying "steady!" as he goes...

Thanks everyone. This week DD and I will mostly be bumpity-ing and boinging then! Sounds much more fun than me going 'aaargh, nooo' as she leaps into the air.

Bizarrely, after posting this morning I managed to get my foot stuck in the bottom stairgate and pull it entirely off the wall (I now have a very bruised ankle) so probably best we get started straight away...