bed rails and safety gate advice please

[ahfeckit]

I'm thinking of putting DS in his 'big' bed (a double that we got from my brother which was hardly used) and going to use the bedrail which we got from a friend, but...does anyone use a safety gate at their LO's bedroom door, to stop them wandering off at night or do you just continue to use the one at the top of the stairs (for those who have two storey house)?

Any advice please? I'm not sure what to do and don't want to hesitate for much longer. DS nearly 2yo, and is getting a bit big for his cot now (it's a small cot!).

TIA.

We have one of those soft folding ones - which work very well. But we've now graduated to a row of pillows on the floor for the odd occasion DD falls out. We moved her when she was 20 months old - for the first few nights she landed on the floor at least once a night.

In terms of stairgates we've never bothered as DD learned to open ours within ten minutes of us fitting them . We shut her bedroom door, she can technically reach it and escape but she's only done it once in eight months so we are willing to leave things open.

Worst case scenario if you have a stair top one, is that you will have a guest at 4am crawling into bed and if you just return him to bed very quickly without talking to him he'll get the idea he's not welcome

Moved our DS into bed toddler bed when he was 19 mnths and only used a stairgate at top of stairs. All fine, the only place he ever wandered was occassionally into our bed!

However, I do think it depends on personality - DD was 2 last week and still darent put her in bed as she will share with DS and DSS who are in bunks, which she cannot resist climbing. She also loves flushing toilet and turning taps on, cant have stairgate as DS gets up to go to the loo in the night, so am at a bit of a loss. You know your child, and also know your own comfort zone, so maybe worth having gate on door at first which can be removed/left open when you know how he's getting on.

thanks folks. had this discussion with DH (have been for a few months now!) and he really feels a safety gate on DS's bedroom is the way forward but I feel that having the one at the top of stairs is enough. Will have to discuss it a bit more, it seems! Picked up the bed rail today, so just have to decide about when to give this a go. I feel DS needs to get moved into his bed now, he's 2 years old in a few weeks time, and really is too big in his cot!

is it worth keeping the cot up in the room when he starts sleeping in the bed or should I just remove the cot straightaway?

thanks for the tips

when i moved my DS2 into his big boy bed i actually split down the bunk beds and gave him the top bunk which has the safety rail all around it which was a bit of a cheat, but i left the safety gate at the top of the stairs but a wee lock on the outside of the bath room door which i lock before i go to bed so the only place he wanders is into my bed room (which surprisingly doesn't happen all that often)