Steep victorian staircase with baby

[Ceridwyn82]

We are moving house and found a house (terraced victorian, 2-up-2-down type) that is lovely and fits our criteria but has a drawback of a very very steep staircase - the type you have to go down slowly turned semi sideways and always gripping bannister. We have a 3 month old baby so I am really put off by the thought of having to navigate these multiple times a day whilst carrying a baby which is firstly inconvenient and also the danger of falling. Not sure if it’s a case of we will just get used to it or if will always be so inconvenient that ruins the enjoyment of the house. Particularly worried as we are actually moving to escape a staircase! (Different issue though - we live on 4th floor with no lift so been carrying a baby up and down for 3 months and no pram access). Anyone faced similar dilemma/issue?

Will your baby be able crawl and walk up and down the stairs safely in the future would be my concern

We have a steep staircase, and I had similar worries! We had to find a solution as otherwise the house is perfect (and we couldn't afford to move!). We had gates top and bottom, and I was just really really careful carrying dc down. I taught them to go up safely and down on their bottoms early on so they didn't have to be carried. We also put a thick carpet down and never leave things on the stairs. Two children and I've never fallen down them! They never did either until they got to be teenagers and would run up them, but more of a slip than a fall. We had a downstairs bathroom which helps as it's only really once up and once down a day. I forget they're steep until someone comes round for the first time and comments , or I go to someone else's house and don't have to climb the stairs 😁

Use a baby carrier. You'll have them strapped to you and will still be able to use the bannister properly and if you ever fell you'd likely fall on your bum so baby will be safe strapped to your chest.

Can you get the stairs changed? I am thinking about ours, they sound similar and have the thickest spongiest very plush carpet on, bloody death trap imo! I am old and would probably break a hip on the bastarding things.

I was wondering if it is possible to get each stair tread made wider? But I cannot get my head around it enough to talk to joiner without sounding like a loon.

Having said that, I do only fall down "normal" stairs, I find that knowing it's a hazardous set puts me on alert so there's no fleeing up or down, no jostling with cats and dogs....they get sent down first or carried, hand on bannister, proper paying attention.

You do get used to bad stairs. And the rules above from pearljamm are good

oh...it's me for the bannister and paying attention, I don't make the pets hold on.

I think you get used to it. Friend had horribly bad stairs and very drunken parties. Only one person every tripped down in years.

🙋‍♀️

This was me 2.5 years ago. I live in a Victorian property with steep internal stairs. When I had my baby, I kept a changing mat downstairs to negate the need for going upstairs unnecessarily. I have a downstairs WC which helped too. I put a stair gate on the bottom of the stairs, this was more to stop the dog going upstairs whenever he liked. We kept the living room door shut so baby never got used to seeing and playing with the stairs as they became more mobile (also helped keep the heat in by shutting the door).

By the time baby could crawl and was napping in their cot upstairs during the day, I put a baby gate across the baby's room rather than the top of the stairs (awkward placement).

We have a stair runner which is really thick and is prone to slipping on if you're wearing socks. I just made sure I was either wearing my soled slippers or was sockless and held onto the handrail going up and down.

At 1 year, I showed baby how to crawl upstairs (standing directly behind him) and he soon learnt how to walk down holding the bannister (with me standing in front of him). He's really confident at navigating stairs. I noticed a friend who has really wide, well lit and shallow stairs - their baby (2 years) wasn't as confident at climbing stairs because mum had always carried her. That's not a sleight on the mum's part, just an observation that her stairs were easier to carry baby up so baby didn't really need to learn.

So long as you have a bannister or something to hold onto, you can make it work. Just take your time.

I was worried about this as had lived in a ground floor flat. Baby was 8 months and was scared of the stairs at first!
Hold the bannister and go slowly. When they’re a bit older teach them stair safety.

I fell and slid feet first down the very steep stairs in our old house in the middle of the night while holding baby (going to warm milk), so I would only go ahead if the stairs could be made less steep in some way.

We lived in a house like this with 2 kids until they were about 5 & 7. Moved for a bigger house in the end but neither child fell down the stairs ever. As PP said, we taught them to crawl up and come down on bottoms. The only person to fall down was my DH and he bout did it once and he was sober at the time.
It was a 3-storey house and we slept on the top floor so lived with 2 steep staircases through 2 pregnancies and 2 kids. It was fine