When did you REMOVE your top-of-stairs baby-gate?

[morningpaper]

DD is 2.5 and although she can't get downstairs by herself she doesn't try either. I wonder whether I should remove the babygate - it would make the hall less cluttered!

When did other people do this?

I put a babygate at the top of our stairs when ds was 6 months, but it pulled half the wall off, dh was supposed to fix it, but never did, I taught ds to come down the stairs on his tummy which he has done confidently since before 12 months. Now at 23 months he wants to come down standing holding the bannister, this really makes my stomach churn, but I suppose they've got to learn, he has enough vocabulary to tell me what hurts if he does fall ( from previous message).

Our is still there because of ds (15 months). However dd who is 3.5 sometimes goes to the toilet in the middle of the night and the toilet is right at the top of the stairs so it will be there for a while yet. In her sleepy state I would worry she (or ds when he is older) will fall.

i removed mine around about the 13 month mark. they could crawl up and down the stairs at that point so if elt it was safe to do so.
and i have heard of too many babies pushing against the stairgate till it toppled down with baby on it and getting hurt that ways.

My dd is 2.5 we keep it closed at night as she often gets up and has to wander right past it to get into our room, and she often appears to be sleep walking so worry about her tumbling down the stairs whilst still asleep.

But by day its left open and she wanders up and down freely.

I guess i have to be brave at some point and stop using it, would love to get rid of it as our landing isn't that big and the amount of times i've walked into it when its open.

We took ours down last week - ds is 2.8 and took ages to be confident using the stairs without holding my hand. However he's a big Koala Brothers (cbeebies) fan and loved to swing on the gate like Ned the wombat, shouting in dodgy aussie accent "I'm getting the gate Frank!" - I nearly had kittens so figured the gate should go before ds broke his neck!

We've never had one. We moved here from a single-storey flat when DD was 18mo and couldn't see the point.

lol Mcmudda!