Spiral staircases and young children. An accident waiting to happen or am I paranoid?

[Sputnik]

Saw a flat the other day we really liked, but it was on 2 floors with a spiral staircase. I have a 3 yo and a 6 mo, and I'm a bit dubious, the staircase seemed quite narrow and our 3 yo was a bit suspicious of it. Anyone have any experience of small children and spiral staircases?

You know what? It's NOT falling down the stairs that you should be concerned about. Easily remedied with a stair gate.

What you need to do is find out what the regulations are on the gap between the treads - if a child could get its head through then they could hang themselves.

Now you've scared me fortyplus!

The spriral is original - there's a round well for it at the top. The flat has a 70's feel to it. Why would it be easier to fall down an open tread staircase?

There is a downstairs toilet and the bedroom is small so most of the toys would be downstairs in large living room. But i take your point!

I just remember an awful story from when ds1 was small of a child playing on a slide putting head through the side rail and getting hanged. The regulations for slides were changed accordingly because of it - that was early 90s.

I should think that if you phoned the Building Regs office at your local council they would be able to tell you max and min safe distance between the treads.

I'm not sure it's easier to fall down an open tread staircase, but if a child does, they can fall through the gaps. It bloody hurt! From Forty, sounds as if we were very lucky, though.