Crawling baby and 3 year old. Alternative to stairgates?

[stclair]

We live in a 4 storey house and have stairs everywhere. Baby is really on the move now so need to stop her access to the stairs but the stairgates we used when her nearly 4 year old sister was a baby are so effective she can't open them so can't get through. What to do?

Teach the eldest to open them or to climb over them? Or alternatively get new gates that she can open just for places that you have to prevent baby getting to eg stairs need them but kitchen doesn't?

Watching with interest.

Want to avoid Stair Gates too!

My 4 year old can open stair gates. That of course comes with its own issues as she is less reliable with shutting them....

Close doors?

we moved to a 3 storey house when DS was old enough not to need them but DD was tiny. When she got mobile, DH spent time every day doing "stair training" with her, so that within a very short time, although I was obviously vigilant, we never needed them. DS would have hated to have been corralled on one floor and as the living room and kitchen are on different floors it would have been very difficult.

Similar situation here - ds1 is 4 and ds2 is a very quicker crawler & stair climber and we're on 3 floors. I have stairgates and it's actually quite useful that ds1 can't open them as he can't come and jump on the bed in the morning. Does get annoying when he needs to go to the loo though and I have to go and open the gates for him. What I try and do is only close the ones where we are at the time - so of we're downstairs I only make sure the bottom stairgate is closed so if ds1 needs to go up I can just open that one for him and then he's ok. Hoping someone else comes along with a bright idea.

We stuck with the stair gates and have not taught 4yo DC1 how to open them. I just make sure she has access to a toilet without a gate in her way.

The gates are bloody useful for keeping both DCs away from the kitchen when stuff is cooking, or upstairs when I've just tidied it up. It annoys me when friends or cousins come to visit who can open the stair gates!

DC1 is at school now anyway so not home much, hence we have set things up to suit DC2 as he is here more often.

Thanks for your replies. Eldest DD can't open them as too short and not strong enough (need to lift to open). Good idea Cassall about leaving all the gates open and just shutting where baby needs to be contained at that time. Kitchen, living room, bathrooms etc also on different floors so I'm up and down the stairs all the time so helpful to leave baby somewhere safe.

We had a travel stair gate which folded down. We just had it downstairs with a step so that the dc could step over it but the baby couldn't.

I haven't explained it at all well I realise but any barrier would work as long as your 3yo can step over it iykwim?

Like the idea of Stair training fairylights. I think we'll do that!