When did you take down your stair gates?

[pepsi]

My children are now 4 and half and 2 and a half and we still have a stair gate at the top of the stairs, we shut it at night in case the go walkies in teh night, but the rest of the time I find it a pain, the eldest shuts it to stop the youngest getting up stairs, then she shakes it, or he shakes it. Is it safe to take it away now do you think?

Any takes for some advice before I disappear?

I still have my stair gates on top and bottom and ds is 2.9. he can open them if he wants, but it is a good detterent and makes me more relaxed.

see you didn't disappear!

We took ours away when ds1 was 20 months - we had to sell our house and we thought removing the stairgates would make it look more attractive, but also he was a pretty steady walker by then. Spent a couple of days teaching him how to go up and down safely (I think first by making him crawl backwards down, but from memory this changed soon into him going down on his bottom then not long after him properly walking down) and then after that we didn't look back.

Felt it was a little young at the time, but circumstances dictated, but once we'd done it was actually very pleased. Much easier to go visiting other houses too as I no longer had to worry about his safety on the stairs.

I would say that when you remove them, make sure you do it when you have a few days "free" where you can monitor the youngest's safety, teach them to go up and down carefully, and replace the gates if you feel they're not quite ready.

never had them - afraid I am slightly of the school of thought that they allow us to be less vigilante and that they slow children's ability to learn to be independent. I don't see why a kid over 2 would need to be deterred from using the stairs.

Do they ever get up in the night to wander? If not then I wouldn't worry. But leave the hall light on.

I took them down when my son reached 2 1/2 with no probs. They're back on now as youngets is 2 - but thinking of removing them soon!
Anyway, if you check the user instructions you may find they only guarantee them until kids are 2 - by then I think they're strong enough to open them if they pull hard enough.

What stair gates ?

we still have ours, mine are 4 and 2. I use mine though to keep the doggies out etc.

Ours came down when dd2 was 2 and learned how to climb over them. I know "they" say that she should not be able to do this (and she is the tiniest little thing too) but combine the phenomenal agility and upper body strength of an olympic gymnast with the determination and single-mindedness of Ghengis Khan and you can achieve pretty much anything! We took the gates down because we thought that it would be more dangerous for her to climb over the gate at the top of our stairs than to take it down. We leave the landing light on so that they can see the top of the stairs at night if they wake up and get out of bed.

we removed ours round about the age of 2, and put them up again 6 months later when the next ones started crawling !

MI, is that a confession that the Inferiority Complex hasn't been baby-proofed? Tut tut... (says she who still hasn't got round to fitting the loo seat catch even though ds is regularly caught investigating...)

Another one who never had them!

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Took them down at about 14 months - when ds could already climb out of his cot, and was starting on climbing over the stairgates too. I figured that not having them was safer than him going headfirst over the top one!

fabarooney - your dd and my ds would obviously get on well. I'm convinced he's a throwback to spider and monkey somewhere in his distant ancestry!

Had one briefly - then it fell down and we never bothered putting it back up. Might reconsider when dd goes into a bed (she's now 2 and a bit and happy in her cot), but ideally will just leave her to it. She's always been an avid and competent mountaineer!

We never had any and we've got two flights of stairs in our house!! (please no one call my health visitor or the social services). TBH I bought two, but ds could go up and down the stairs at around 9/10 months old... he just learnt so we never put them up. Oh and BTW, he's never EVER fallen down them either.

Took ours down as soon as ds could open them, in fact he could do it more easily than I could.

I have never used them. We have a house full of stairs and I worked out that we would have to have about 6 sets of them. And I knew that the dog would always be on the wrong side of one or other of them, which would drive me mad. So I spent a day or so with each of my children teaching them how to go up the stairs and then when they mastered that (not long), a day or two teaching them how to come down (on their tummies). Neither have ever fallen and were competent stair users before they could walk. I have the same attitude to 'child-proofing' the house - unless something is dangerous ie chemicals under the sink, medicine etc which are kept locked away, the kids are allowed free access to everything. They do (eventually) get bored of pulling the cds and books down, poking about in the plant soil, playing with the phones, emptying cupboards out and move on to other things. It also means going to someone else's (unchildproofed) house is not the nightmare it is to some of my more safety concious friends!