Stair Gates

[Greedynan]

We have just one at the bottom of the stairs. Youngest DC is now 2y5m and goes up/down the stairs without difficulty. DH states that gate should remain in place for another year at least. Personally I'd like to remove as soon as. The number of times I've tripped or had near misses...

What have other parents done?

I kept them up longer than needed to stop dc rampaging upstairs and pulling all the drawers out. But considering a phased removal now. So will remove bottom one but leave top one locked so they get bored.

Stair gates serve more than one purpose. Your child might be safe using the stairs now, but you still might want to limit their access sometimes. We found it handy to keep it closed when you don’t want the toddler to wander off upstairs in their own but you can’t be chasing them constantly. There’s no right or wrong answer here, it’s about what suits your family and you home.

We removed ours much earlier - once we know that they can climb up and down safely they go... I hate them being swung on and shaken. A bit like plug covers - while they fix one problem they can create others...

My son is 2 years 3 months. We have one at the bottom of the stairs, one at his bedroom door and one at the kitchen door.
Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable or happy if they weren't there, as I like to know ds is safe.
We have screw fit gates anyway. I hate pressure fit ones as I hate the trip bar and I don't feel they are safe enough. (you shouldn't have pressure fit on stairs anyway).

Pressure fit ones are fine for the bottom of stairs, which is what the OP has.

Yes we have pressure fit at the bottom and, as another poster mentioned, dc hang off it and shake it a lot. I hate the thing tbh but agree with other people's concern re safety. It's a toughie. Thank you all for your replies though. Much appreciated.

My DS is almost 2 and the only gate I use now is the one at the top of the stairs. This is to prevent accidental falls is he’s running around upstairs. I don’t bother with the one at the bottom of the stairs as he’s safe going up and down on his own. We do have one across our living room door which can be useful if I need to keep him contained somewhere safe for a few minutes.

Never had stairgates, no problems.

We to them off once they were safely going up and down as pushing on them was more of a concern.

My son who is now 2.5 yrs. we got rid of ours when he was around 2.2 yrs old. He confidently goes up and down.

It also is relevant where it is . We have stairs in the lounge so much more temptation to play on.

DD is 3.5 and we have a stairgate at the top. She's fine going up and down but we have a very narrow hallway and it's more for when she's running about up there. Plus it's useful if I have to get up in the night, sometimes I'm so tired I could quite easily stumble - have nearly done it a couple of times.

I think it depends on your house (and your child). DS 2.5 is perfectly competent, but our stairs are in our sitting room going dowstairs.The gate prevents him falling accidentally when he tears about, and keeps him in the sitting room rather than randomly roaming off

We stopped using it at about 2.5 as upon arrival of new baby it caused problems if I was stuck feeding/sorting newbie and eldest wanted the toilet and I was happy that she was confident with climbing the stairs.

We drilled into her to go up on all fours (initially) and come down on her bottom. She is three now and is fine walking up and down holding on.

I think it depends on the child. We have lots of steps into the garden so eldest has had experience of getting used to climbing up and down steps.

We did spend some time following her up and down until we were certain she was ok by herself, she actually started to get cross With us going up and down with her and so we gradually held back a bit more.

I moved house when youngest was 16 months and did not put any up in the new house, hes 2.4 years now and is very capable and aware on the stairs. My sil has stairgates at the top of the stairs, at the bottom of the stairs and across the kitchen, her ds is 3 in a couple of weeks and hes shocking on the stairs.

We got rid of ours when DC was about 2, I was more concerned about her hanging off it or swinging on it and falling down the stairs that way - she was quite confident going up and down by herself by this point.

When the two year old sheers the gate off the frame with his brute force.

Mine’s very good at going up and down stairs at 2y3m but I’ve kept the one at the top of the stairs on in case I don’t wake when he does in the morning as I don’t want him downstairs totally without supervision. We also have one stopping him going up to the attic room because it isn’t childproofed at all and I want to reinforce that’s it’s daddy’s work space and he’s not allowed there.

I've one on the kitchen door and one across the living room/ dining room, they aren't to contain the children more to stop the dogs getting underfoot when I'm cooking and pinching the kids food. I never had one on the stairs as we'd accompany them up and down until they were competent and they were contained the rest if the time. There was one on their bedroom doors until in my daughters case i felt no longer necessary and in my sons he could scale it.

My DS is 8 now and ours are still in place. More so for our elderly dog so he doesn't try to get up the stairs. We do use them, on occasion to prevent access to upstairs when we have visitors though :)