At what age can toddlers do stairs safely?

[Lovethesea]

Just looking for some thoughts, I know all toddlers are different, but hoping this thread might help me to work out where I am currently on the overprotective to reckless parenting scale!

DD is nearly 22 months, has been walking since 15 months and is confident on her feet. Our enclosed garden is only accessible by going down 10 concrete steps from the back door. DD is good at pottering about out there while I feed DS (12 weeks) or cook dinner. I am letting her come up the steps on her own, but am getting her to take my hand for going down them. I think she is unlikely to fall, but I am having awful visions of major head injuries if she were to fall down 10 roughcast concrete steps.

We have a normal flight of carpeted stairs to upstairs in the house and a stairgate at the top. DD has recently started to come down them on her bottom while I observe. Otherwise she takes my hand for coming down and goes up them on her own with me behind her.

So - when did your toddler manage stairs independently? When did the stairgates go? What would you do about the concrete garden steps? Treat them the same as the house stairs?

mine were all going UP stairs by about 8 months , once they were crawling proficiently.

ds1 refused steadfastly to go down backwards, so was supervised probably until he was around 2 and could confidently go down forwards

ds2 and ds3 were both fine going down backwards from around a year

forgot to say, if your dd is ok going down on her bottom i'd be happy personally to let her manage them herself

but i onoly have your post to go on, you should do what you feel is best because you know the steps (ie, how steep they are etc etc) and you know your daughter

Could you put something soft at the bottom of the steps the the garden? Pehaps some of those foam garden mats? You'd have to bring them in if it rained I guess though.

DS is 23 months and walks up stairs holding the bannister. I still follow him up just in case he slipped or got distracted, but he never does, so maybe I don't need to. He comes down either on his hands and knees backwards, or sitting down. Our stairs are quite steep so he is very cautious when going on his bum, it takes a long time and again I'm reluctant to leave him to it.

We have concrete steps out the back like that so I understand your worries.

My dd is 2.4 months and it's only really the last few weeks I've been letting her go down the steps by herself. She tends to bump down them on her bum anyway, so now I'm worried I've given her too much of a fear of them - you can't win.

She has been doing the internal stairs by herself for much longer, although we still have a stairgate on for night time.

Hmm. We didn't have a stairgate as our massive Victorian staircase wouldn't accommodate one, so the children had to do stairs from crawling onwards (about 10 months; both walked at 11 months). We used to have a big rolled up mattress blocking the landing so they couldn't get as far as the stairs - though DS soon learnt that it was like being in a soft play centre, and he could dive over it. We only had one stair-related mishap which resulted in a trip to A&E (just to be on the safe side).

We also had four roughstone steps down to the garden, and the DC managed them fine. They didn't go down backwards, but they did do them on their bottoms. But only you know what your steps are like and how competent your child is. If in doubt, obviously, keep holding her hand.

I think DD was about 2 when i started letting her go up and down stairs without being right behind her in case she fell. I'd be more cautious with the outside steps though, maybe wait until she can do the internal stairs really confidently.