Keeping sleepwalking 10 year old safe at night...

[Talk75]

My son sleepwalks. I'm a light sleeper and he makes a racket getting up and so I can usually rush out of bed and make sure he's ok.

I am so scared though that one night I won't hear him and he will fall down the stairs and really hurt himself or worse ;(

I'm thinking of getting a 'baby gate' to put on his bedroom door but don't want to embarrass him when his friends come round so it needs to be easily removed.

Does anyone use a stair gate for this and can you recommend any gates that can quickly and easily be put up every night!! Or any other solutions !

Thank you xx

Stair gate on his door would be embarrassing with friends. Top of the stairs wouldn't.

My 11 year old DS periodically sleepwalks. He is sort of on 'autopilot', so as long as there was nothing to trip over on the stairs I doubt he would trip he would just plod down the steps on autopilot.

What sorts of thing does your DS do when sleep walking?

Hi - So should have said that the top of the stairs is a really awkward size and shape and doesn't fit any stair gate. The angle of the walls are weird (we live in a cottage ) so nothing can stick there so that's why I'm thinking of his door instead.

He gets up and walks about and sometimes stands at the top of the stairs. He has walked down them before but we were still up and the lights were all on.

He recently ran back into his room whilst sleepwalking and jumped into his bed but misjudged it and smacked head first into the external wall and really hurt himself...which started me worrying about this. ;(

I think the stair gate depends on how asleep he is. My DS1sleepwalks sometimes and is actually capable of moving and opening things. This really scared him and I when he first did it. He woke up in our kitchen/ family room having moved and tidied things away. I hadn't heard anything until he told me in the morning. He only seems to do it when DH has been away for a long time (works away sometimes for months at a time) so maybe it's things playing on his mind. He's also woken up in the living room, amongst other places in his room.
All I did was try and child proof the house as much as possible. Hide door keys and I also fitted a lock on the kitchen door as I was scared he'd touch the gas cooker.
I also used to sleepwalk and once tried opening all the front door including the lower bolt. Luckily I was too small to reach the higher bolt. My mum had to hide the keys every night from that point on.
Somebody suggested to me put something outside his room that would make a noise when he walked on it to try and wake me up. Haven't thought of what though and now I have a DS2 9 weeks so I sleep a lot lighter now anyway!!