Do I NEED to put up stairgates?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

DS (15 months) has just worked out how to climb stairs and has mananged to climb the whole flight now! We are always right behind him in case he slips, obviously, and don't let him into the hall himself now. We don't have stairgates yet, we are going to put one at the top so he can wander about upstairs but do we need to put one at the bottom? Surely they need to be shown how to go up and down stairs safely and if there are always stairgates up how would they know what to do with stairs?

Do you have stairgates at the bottom? If not, how do you exactly teach a baby to climb and descend stairs???

I have them at the bottom and the top. This is mainly because I have a baby and a toddler so it is hard chasing them both.

Anyway, you can get the ones that screw into the bannister - they aren't on springs so you could just leave it open (has no trip bar) if you want him to learn how to climb. They also are removable (remove one plastic cap and the spring underneath, lift off gate and screwed fixings remain in wall/bannister) if you only want them up sometimes.

Here is mine

www.mothercare.com/gp/product/B000JFC94Q/sr=1-19/qid=1233332773/ref=sr_1_19/277-5401231-4650516?ie=U TF8&m=A2LBKNDJ2KZUGQ&n=42869041&mcb=core

Also, if he climbs up the stairs when you are not looking, he could still fall from the step next to the top one - that's just the same as falling from the top.

we had one at the bottom also which we would close if we knew we would have our backs turned as it only takes a minute for them to get up when your busy and then hear them fall back down again

We have at top and bottom. Not that we need it yet, DD is at the only crawling backwards stage

I'm in Scotland and our local council runs a scheme I think is called Homecheck, where someone comes out and does a home safety check. We got the 2 stairgates, an additional smoke alarm at the bottom of the stairs and the bloke checked our microwave wasnt leaking, all for nothing. Dont know if this happens everywhere, but it might be worth asking your local council. It was my HV who told me about it.

We had them top and bottom as ds was walking at 10 months, and had mastered going up and down the stairs before he was one and he'd fallen down just too many times for my nerves to take it any more. Once he got to abotu 14 months I started leaving them open and holding his hands as he walked down the stairs. I also tried to persuade him to turn round and go down bum first by physically showing him, turning him around and moving his feet down to the next step and so on. At first he didn't get it, but suddenly he realised what he had to do and then he was away. We kept the gates, but left them open for a couple of weeks, but now at 16 months we're gate free and it's marvellous!

We don't have any. We've yet to find one that will actually fit our stairs (they're an awkward shape & size). I just keep the living room door shut and we have one on the kitchen door. We have one on her bedroom door which is in case she wakes up at night.

never had them, never will.

No, you don't NEED them, you can make your life a misery not being able to turn your back on your child EVER.

My youngest was 2 in Jan and we still have ours up as, although he manages up and down really well, I can't bear the thought of hearing that 'thud' and the wait for the scream to come . They are very casual about stairs but still think they can walk straight down them without holding on. And we all know that isn't possible.

We didn't have any with dd but she was quite good and wasn't really that bothered about playing on the stairs. When she was a bit older and stopped napping reliably I needed to be able to shut her in a room safely so that I could shower/cook/clean in peace so we had one on her bedroom door and one on the sitting room door which stopped her from being able to get into the hallway, kitchen and to the stairs.

DS (13 months) is a bit more interested in the stairs and would happily go up and down them all day so we have one on the sitting room door again and one at the top of the stairs. Am not sure how ds learnt to go down them safely but he did within days of going up them. I seem to remember spending a while going down backwards with dd everytime we needed to come downstairs, she took a while to get the hang of it I think.

I don't think stairgates stop them from learning, ds seems to have done it by himself and dd learnt by being shown what to do...

Oh and to me it is more important to have one at the bottom of the stairs than at the top, I don't let ds play upstairs without me so he would be less likely to fall from actually being upstairs than if he had climbed up from downstairs if I didn't have one blocking access to the bottom

Message withdrawn

snufflebufty where are you in Scotland? I'm in Stirlingshire but have never heard of that home safety thing! Did you get your stairgates for free and did they fit them too?

We had one at the top only - the sort that screws onto the wall and bannister, and never had a problem with either of our children falling down when they were little. I think if they are deliberately climbing the stairs then they are paying attention to it and are less likely to fall, but if they are wandering about upstairs (eg going to the loo in the night) they could easily lose their bearings when half asleep and pitch down. In fact the only accident we had was when DD (7 or 8 at the time) was swinging on the stairgate at the top (which she had been told repeatedly not to do), it came off the hinges (screws still firmly attached to wall) and she pitched down with the gate on top of her. Luckily our stairs turn halfway down so she didn't have to fall all the way to the bottom. You'd have thought she would have learnt her lesson but no, she did it again only a couple of days later.

ilikeyoursleeves I'm in Aberdeen, the stairgates and the smoke alarm all free and a really nice chap came a couple of weeks ago and fitted them for me.

snuffle that sounds great, did you just phone the council yourself? What dept, who did you ask for? I just searched the net to see if they do it down here and could only find a homecheck thing through the fire station? Would that be it? They said they would look at smoke alarms but would they fit stairgates?