Toddlers and stairs

[DragonbornMum]

Long story short, we are tempoarily living with my parents while our house purchase goes through. Our son is 21 mo and can manage stairs independently (with supervision). There are no stair gates.

At what age would/did you let your kids go up and down without supervision? He's always waited for company on the stairs, but this last week he's started them without someone there.

I'm the first to admit I'm a bit over protective but I still accompany my 2.5 year old on the stairs albeit from sometimes 5-6 steps lower than him. He's so easily distracted/only takes one wrong step for them to topple all the way. My niece the same age has been trusted on the stairs unaccompanied for a long while!

We taught my daughter to go down on her bottom instead of walking down. She's 4 and still does that in the house because she says it's faster and more fun

Bottom is also very handy when they are carrying something.

I think it depends on the stairs too. Ours are steep and painted with a tiled floor at the bottom. DD is nearly 3 and we still have stair gates top and bottom.

DS has just turned 2. We have a LOT of stairs. He has started to insist on walking by himself (no hand holding) but I always keep a very close eye on him so I could grab him if he slips. With his older sister we stopped 'hovering' probably around 3 years old.

DD was 3 - but we have really difficult stairs (old cottage) and she wasn’t very confident. She often still asks me to come with her now and she is 3.5, but she has had a few tumbles where they are narrow.

DS1 loved climbing up and down stairs and we had an awkward landing which couldn't have a stair gate. So I spent a lot of time teaching him to do it safely (coming down backwards etc) and then let him do it independently. Otherwise I'd have had to spend literally all day right by his side! I can't remember how old he was but a lot younger than 21 months.

We’ve never had stair gates. We moved from a flat to a house with lots of stairs (Victorian town house) when DC1 was a toddler. Spent the first weekend there teaching him how to go up and down stairs safely as there was no way we could stair gate it all. He was pretty good at it after a couple of days.

For DC2, we did similar. Once he started to crawl, we started teaching him how to use the stairs. A couple of weeks and I was confident enough in him to let him do it himself.

DC3 thought we didn’t trust so had a stair gate at the bottom of the first set of stairs and let him crawl around on the ground floor. He’s disabled though and poor balance so always will be unsteady.

Think it depends on the child and the stairs and how long they have been exposed to them to practise.

My stairs are steep and narrow, baby started climbing them before walking at 10m under supervision. Never installed stair gates. Toddler is 2.5y now and walks up and down independently one foot each step as an adult might, without supervision. Around 23m toddler started two feet one step at a time, confidently without supervision. It was a bit before that we started letting baby try without supervision (whilst I hovered at the bottom) but it wasn't every time at that point.

At my parents and in-laws houses respectively - their stairs are nowhere near as steep or deep to step and toddler has been using their stairs independently earlier, about 18m.