Kittens and stairs

[littleroad]

We have just adopted two 12 week old kittens and are at the point of slowly opening the house up for them. We have an open banister up the stairs and along the whole length of the landing. I'm concerned about it being a potential fall hazard and have been looking at stair/ bannister material guards. However I've also read these can encourage jumping up onto the bannister itself so potentially are more dangerous! Looking for any advice.

My opinion just leave them cats aren't daft....and they will acrobat themselves to safety anyway! If you're worried just lean stuff along it for now but tbh anything you do they will find a way around

Leave them to it. They figure it out pretty quickly.

The dangerous time is when they start getting bigger and get stuck in spaces they could previously fit, cue a lot of dragging out your fridge freezer to fish out a kitten stuck behind it.

I agree, had cats since 1980, So had a few

Leave the kittens to their own devices.

So gorgeous

Sorry pressed too soon.
I have never had that problem having enclosed staircases.
I agree they will work it out though. It's how they learn about hazards.
They are gorgeous by the way.
I just followed them round all day trying to keep them out of trouble, kept me fit though ! Good luck.

I've never, ever had a cat injure themselves because they've fallen from a great height. They're not stupid - they know what they can and can't jump from safely.

The tabby and white one looks full of mischief! They will be fine

Thanks everyone. This was prompted as the littlest one did come through the gap from about 7 steps up and land in the hallway. She seemed shocked but none the worst for her exploits. I’ll keep following them as I am just now ! And the tabby is full of nonsense. I love it!

Just leave them to it. Although open upstairs windows are an issue our much older kitten climbed out a velux slid down roof and landed on grass, stood up and walked away perfectly fine!

I have similar stairs and my kittens regularly terrified me by walking along the rails. But they never fell and have thankfully mostly lost interest in scaring me with their antics.

They will scare you and get themselves into all sorts of ridiculous situations by the way - it's almost obligatory!

We have similar stairs and similar age kittens it not the stairs that are the problem

For a moment I thought that was a photo of the inside of my house! We have exactly the same stairs and none of my kittens (now cats) have fell. They are smart and figure out it’s not a quick way down. Although they do use it as a spying point!

They'll be fine. They look vaguely familiar. Are they from The Ginger Cat House Rescue?

Our 1 year old (when he was little) was particularly daft and lacked any sense - added with a large drop - we put books along the gaps of the banister. We removed them once he grew.

I had a kitten that age fall through once - he was fine, but didn't do it again!

My second cat managed to climb up to an upstairs top opening window, push it open (wasn't fully latched)and fall onto a concrete patio. He had a graze on his nose and that was it!

My kitten didn’t try that. She is a complete idiot with no sense of danger.

We've had two lots of kittens and neither were a problem.

First two were nine weeks and we certainly did have the curtain climbing problem (shown above), which twice entailed the poles falling down. Toby was absolutely fine on both occasions.

My second two came from Cats Protection at fifteen weeks and I just couldn't contain them in their safe room on feeding and they ran around crazily on every occasion for a couple of hours (kept in a cage previously) and they never fell.

Forgot to say, they're gorgeous. What are their names?

Their names are Lilo and Stitch. Before this we had our elderly cats for 17 years. I don’t remember them being as mad as this as kittens. I guess it’s like babies and you forget. These stair pictures look very familiar! They’re not from the Ginger Cat Rescue. We have had a ginger rescue before though!

Aww they’re lovely! I had the same worries when we adopted our kittens, I was so scared they would jump through the banisters. They’ve been fine, absolutely barmy and into everything but fine 😂
Enjoy them, there’s nothing like the playfulness of kittens!

My then kitten fell through one of these within 20 minutes of bringing her home. I thought it would be safe enough as I thought they would sense the height. She's 4 now and she hasn't done it again 😂

Not really the point but my cat slid down the banister from top to bottom holding on with her two front paws...then jumped down at the bottom. Only happened once that I saw but sort of thing you would see in a cartoon.

Oh My @yumscrummy thats quite mad! They're still scaring me with the stairs as they like to lean out... but so far so good. They're liking hiding in the drawer of my desk. Little girl cat climbs in and chirrups away when I'm working. It's a tiny space!