Closing bedroom door at night

[ObviouslyItsTheOlympics]

Ever since DS moved into his own room we've shut his door at night. We have a monitor, and he doesn't mind the door being shut (he's 18 months now). We don't have any stairgates and I shut the door both so that he won't wander out and fall down the stairs and also because we currently live with my parents who have a tendency to stomp upstairs noisily.....

I never even considered that perhaps I shouldn't be shutting the door but I've read a few comments on other threads where people have expressed horror at a child's door being closed. So, what do you do?

Both DCs have their doors closed (2.11 and 0.7) to stop the cats jumping on them in the middle of the night and scaring them half to death

Oh yes I forgot that I also shut the door to stop a large border collie squeezing under DS's bed!

My ds is 8 and we have never shut his or our bedroom door, I need to know that I can hear him if he needs anything. When he's old enough to want his door shut then he will up to then it stays open.

We close our dc's doors (2.8 and 11 mo) as they both seem really sensitive to light and would be up with the larks otherwise (3 small windows on the landing which would not be easy to cover). 6am is plenty early enough!

We have always shut both DC's doors (age 4 & 11m). We also don't se a baby monitor into our bedroom from the baby room. When she first moved into her own room I did leave our door open at night but I don't bother now. They both make sure I can hear them...

Wish I had shut the door when DS1 was a baby.

Now he refuses to go to sleep in the dark. If he wakes in the night and it is light, he cries. So we have to leave our landing light on all night. PITA.

We have always shut both DCs doors (6 and 1) and shut our bedroom door (I can't sleep when door is open) Why would you not shut their doors? It stops them from being disturbed.

Forgot to say, we have a baby monitor to the baby's room but the 2 yo's bed runs alongside the top of our bed on the opposite side of a thin wall so we have absolutely no trouble hearing him

Why wouldn't you shut the door? DD has had her door shut since she went into her own room

We don't shut DS(3)'s bedroom door because it has one of those safety stopper things to stop it closing and pinching his fingers. It will close to, and DS is well able to swing it closed with force if he wants to make a point.

It's also easier for DS to open in the morning to come in and see us.

i close mine in ds can get up in his own if he needs to anyway. and dd is in her cot and have no problem hearing either

i dont have any monitors or stairgates either.

DD (2.5) moved into a bed from a cot a month or so ago, I leave her door half open but she has a stair gate on her room to stop her wandering out at night (not that she gets up in the night) I still have a monitor so I can hear her.

Ds's door is shut at night and has been since he moved into his own room at 7 months. Firstly it is to stop the cat unwittingly falling asleep in there and waking up to a two year old trying to stuff her into a toybox or something. Secondly it's because we have a very small house and if ds's door was open then he would be constantly woken up or distracted by the bathroom/bedroom or landing light and by us going up and down the stairs. Just because I have to get up at 5am doesn't mean ds is allowed to!!!

We can hear everything ds does even if we are downstairs so no need for a monitor.

I've always closed bedroom doors. Mine are 16 months and 4 (both went into their own rooms at around 8 months). If I didn't the light would stream in from the hall in the morning. I still use monitors for both of them though (even the 4 year old ) and the 4 year old has been able to open his door and come through to us in the morning since he went into a bed at about 2.6.

We've always shut our DS's door since he was a baby and never had a monitor, I am glad because he is totally able to go to sleep without any problem wherever he is .......whenever we have had young guests it has been a bit of pain to have to leave doors open, landing lights on etc etc

The only time I ever leave DS's door open is if his room is too stuffy in the summer. I've never considered a shut bedroom door as a problem.

Closed door house here. Our living room is adjacent to the bedrooms. Doors have to be shut.

We always shut DS (now 3.9) door but then he went through a phase a year ago of being scared of the dark and now needs light in his room - he has a nightlight at our house but if we go anywhere else we have the fuss and bother of leaving doors open and bathroom lights on. I can't sleep well with proper lights on so it's a bit of a battle

I hate sleeping with my bedroom door shut, I think it feels really stuffy (probably all in my imagination) so I don't shut DS's.

I don't shut the boys' bedroom door because they both get scared if it's shut and like the light from the landing. I'm much the same - I hate the dark, terrified of it in fact, and hate feeling closed in - so I can quite sympathise and I don't fully close it, but I do push it to so it's not too bright in there.

We've never shut doors, either our own or the DCs, unless we have guests, this includes us before we had the DCs. I like to be able to hear them if they get out of bed, wake up crying etc and I am a very deep sleeper. They seem to be totally impervious to lights going off and on on the landing, people stomping about, we even go up to the loft while they are in bed if we need to and they don't wake up. Our water tank in the loft leaked through our bedroom ceiling at 4am the other morning and DH and I were running up and down the stairs and the loft ladder which are both right outside their door and they slept right through it all.

I also feel boxed in with the door shut.

I close my childrens doors many reasons really:

They are light sleepers
If one wakes in the morning then the other one does if the doors open.
I dont have stairgates so it stops them just wondering out.
The doors opening wake me so I know they are up and about.
If a fire broke out the doors being closed could give us a few more minutes (think this is true, sure I heard it somewhere!)

DD goes to sleep with her door open but we always close her door when we go to bed: we close our door too. We (I) never had any issues in hearing her when she was little. If we have all had a late night or she wakes up when we are going to bed she is fine to have her door closed then. She also has a night light as otherwise it is too dark in her room to see to get out to the toiled if needed.

Our reasoning for it was this This video is from the US but I saw a UK programme about it and it really stuck with me and I am a bit paranoid about it now.

I shut DS2's door (aged two), because he is a light sleeper, is next to the bathroom, and because he asks for it to be shut, it makes him feel more secure! Always did shut it anyway for the first two reasons. We have a monitor because his bedroom is right down the hall and we wouldn't hear him.

I don't shut DS1's door because he is less of a light sleeper (now), and he wants it open. Used to shut it when he was a baby until stopped using monitor, then left it open. I prefer door shut when sleeping so its default mode with me.