Long flight of stone stairs - can't put stairgate at top.

[MadamAntisDerelicte]

Not really sure what I'm looking for here, as I don't think anyone can give me any advice per se. We can't put a stairgate at the top (lots of reasons too dull to mention), so the DCs have a stairgate on their bedroom door. However, DD (3) can easily climb over and she usually makes her own way down the stairs before I realise she's awake.

Does anyone else have stone stairs? Would it make them much safer to carpet them?

If one of the DCs does fall down the stairs, do you think it's instant doom?

find a way of fixing something.

I grew up in a house with stone stairs, altho there it was a staircase to get out into the back garden so it also had a stone floor at the bottom.

I fell down them with new shoes on when I was 7.

lost one of my brand new front top teeth, and the other was capped and is now crowned....I still just have the one top front tooth.

it may not mean instant doom, I was never good on any stairs and still am not to this day (far too many times I fall up or down), but kiddies do fall, and stone in far far harder than even just plain wooden stairs!

There is no way of fixing anyting. It's just not an option. (We've spent the last 6 weeks looking into it).

Also DD can undo and/or climb over stairgates, and obv I don't want her trying to climb over a stairgate at the top of the stairs!

Same here! We ended up putting a stairgate across ds's bedroom door as well. Not good, because he ended up doing a tiss-over the top, which made him land on the staircase. The stairgate was there until he was of an age where he could be trusted to be more careful. Our stairs are brick, and we still haven't carpeted them YET. I am always nagging dh about them, because we have all fallen down them at some point. Dh was the most badly injured, but that was mainly bruising. I would say that if your stairs are carpeted then at least if there was a falling incident then the bruising might not be as bad. Ouch!

Is yours an old house?
Ours is about 400 years old and has really weird stairs which are impossible to put a stairgate on. Too wide and nothing to attach the gate to.

is there a way fo fixing an extra tall stairgate on their bedroom door??

I have heard of dog gates that are extra tall......not sure tho myself.

or go find flamesparrow and see her profile (assuming the pic is still there)....her DS is an excape artist of the highest order, and her DH has had to fix two stairgates on top of each other in their doorway!!!

Right, so does anyone know if carpet would make it much safer? The stairs aren't slippery - they've got anti-slip things on them. I can't figure out if a few mm of wooliness would make a blind bit of difference.

can't you put carpet on the stone stairs until DCs are old enough not to fall down?

if you put a thick underlay underneath and a decent thickness carpet i would think it would make a lot of difference.

girlandboy - yes, similar situation to me then!

psychomum - that's probably a good idea actually. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised if DD found a way of scaling it

it may if you put down really thick underpile stuff first, but please bear in mind it may be very difficult to fix carpet to stone.

our entire downstairs is stone, and we had hell trying to get the lounge carpeted as the carpet men could not attach the wire things to the floor (we had ordered hesion backed as it had a thincker pile and we could use underpile too)......it was eventually done but at high cost!

we are pulling it all up soon and putting floorboards down, not looking forward to that.....

I think carpet would be better than just the stone. Dh landed on his back on the stairs and ended up with stripy bruises all down him from head to toe. Each bruise corresponded to a separate stair tread. If there had been carpet on them, I don't think the bruising would have been nearly so "colourful".

We have one of those roller ones as we also had trouble finding a way to attach a normal stairgate. Dp had fix a wooden mounting baton onto the wall first though. the gate is a sod to open, and when people stay, we often find them trapped at the top of the stairs :-) how would you carpet stone stairs though?

Tis a problem. Something to do with carpet rods we were told. Dh's excuse that ours are not carpeted is that they are a bit damp and the carpet would trap the damp in. Carpet would make them a darn sight warmer underfoot though - especially in the winter.

Yes, I think the stairgate is going to be the first line of defence. I'll see if we can get carpet fitted too, as DD will still be able to climb over the gate/banisters at the bottom if she puts her mind to it, but from what you say re: stone + carpet it prob won't be an option (house is rented, so can't do anything too drastic).

girlandboy - ouch re: the stripy bruises