When (at What Age) Are Baby Gates On The Stairs No Longer Necessary?
We have a 20 month old daughter and are moving to a new home that has two sets of stairs (wood treads only-no carpet). We have been looking at baby gates for the top of the stairs and have noticed that most of them say to remove them at age two. Should we bother with gates? Our daughter climbs up stairs easily and is just a little unsteady going down. Should I just teach her to go down on her bottom? I want her safe above all but also hate to drill holes in our custom built railings and new walls if it is unneccesary. We also have children ages 6, 5, and 3 years old and I worry about them climbing the gates as well. Thanks for any and all advice!
If you have older kids as well, the gates can end up causing more problems that they solve because kids tend to climb on them, climb over them, trip over them, leave them open when they shouldn’t, etc. I never heard that you should remove them when the child is two — the only reason I can see for advising that is so that the child doesn’t climb on it. But, I can see it could be hard with a gate to constantly have all the kids unhooking it or not using it correctly. One thing is that you probably don’t want the youngest kid to be able to wander up and down without someone knowing where she is all the time. Are both staricases accessible or is one in the back and likely to not be used as often? I wouldn’t want the baby to be able to try and run up and down without supervision — and the gates could ensure that that can’t happen. Can you gate one of the staircases and not the other? Falling down the stairs, especially when there’s no carpeting can be dangerous and I would think you just don’t wnat the baby to have too much independent access to the stairs. Teaching her to go down backwards on her butt would be good but, she may not be likely to do that for long when she sees how everyone else does it! I know I haven’t really answered the question — I’m not real sure, but I thiink I’d probably err on the side of using a gate if it were my kid.
I think the main reason they say to remove them at 2 is because the kid can (and will) learn to climb over the gates, causing more of a safety issue. I think she sounds like she is ready to not have them. maybe have her practice a little bit on going down.
I dont think they are a bad idea even at 5. My son gets into everything and he is nosey and i still have one from the kitchen to the utility room…they are joined rooms in my house. Better safe than sorry!!
My older son was able to pull them down or push them over at 16 months, so that’s when I took ours down. He has been able to walk up and down the stairs unassissted(not even using the banister) since he was 18 months old. I haven’t been worried once. BUT, I am going to need to put them up again soon, my 8 month old has recently discovered stairs and is trying to get up them. I don’t want him to come rolling back down them.
I don’t know if it’s as much of an age thing as it is size, ability to climb up and down the stairs, and your comfort level. I’d definitely get some to use while you’re teaching her. See if you can find some used ones at a consignment shop or something like that if you don’t want to pay full price for a small amount of time. I actually got some decent ones off of freecycle.org.
I would use them at the top until you are completly comfortable with her going up and down on her own. My son is 2 1/2 and he goes up and down without me standing there watching him and has been since he was a little over 1 but he still stumbles once in a while. But I am now comfortable enough that overall I don’t worry about him. You know your child better than anyone else and the best way to know is what you think should happen. Also you can get pressure gates that you don’t have to screw into the walls and banister instead of the type you screw on. HTH.