How much free reign for 2 year olds?

So my monkeys will be two in two months, and I'm curious to see how much of your house do your little ones have free reign in at 2 years? Right now their domain remains our living room and dining room and a small hallway that I call their 'toy nook' (although it seems as if the whole house is becoming a 'toy nook'). I am currently working on baby-proofing our kitchen, and I'm hoping to let them have that area free to play in by the end of the year. They are getting immensely bored with their free play areas of the house, and I'm hoping that opening up at least one more room will give them a little more freedom to play, but I'm also wondering how many folks out there give their LOs more free reign at this age than I am. I just don't think that I'm ready to have them play in other areas of the house that I can't easily keep an eye on them. I just don't trust them in far off corners of my house even if the whole house was baby-proofed as they are starting to try to scale furniture to new heights, and I swear I think they would hang from the blinds in the living room right now if I let them :wacko: I'm starting to think they could get into trouble somehow if I put them in an empty room . My sweet little monkeys are turning into just monkeys...sneaky, sneaky monkeys that have a growing affection for trouble. When will I be able to feel more comfortable letting them in other parts of the house to play?

 

Ours have free reign to their bedroom, Hannah's bedroom (but it has a door knob cover on the outside for when she is napping), kitchen, and living room. We have our bedroom door closed just bc we are lazy about baby proofing it and they don't bother it, bathrooms are off limits for obvious reasons, and our dining room is gated off bc that is where the dog food and computer is

 

When mine turned 2, they still had access to the main areas of the house and I did not give them more free space to wander until about 2.5.

 

At 2 we were renting a small apartment so they had dining room, hallway and living room. The rest of the house wasn't baby proofed at all because we just had to pile stuff where we could from lack of storage. Then we moved again and put no gates (except in a storage area by the kitchen). Most days I miss the gates LOL. Seriously, it's nuts, and that's with everything baby proof and out of reach (but DS always finds ways to get into stuff). It's exhausting and we spend our days checking after them, and we end up putting the tv on way more than we should so we get a break. Honestly I think it was just fine before, so unless you can baby proof everything and be 100% sure they won't get into things, I would just stick to what you have for now!

 

Mine have always had total access to the main floor (kitchen, family room, living room, dining room, playroom) and I gate the stairs to upstairs where the bedrooms are.

 

This is how we were too, ever since they were around 12 months. I just followed them around so they were never alone in a room. The only places that were off limits were upstairs (bedrooms and bathrooms), laundry room and office.

 

We moved when our girls were 20 months old -- to a house with no stairs -- and they've had access to every room in the house since then. At times I would close the door to the guest room so they didn't climb on the bed, and we kept bathroom doors closed until they were potty trained, but other than that... free reign of the living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, their bedroom, our bedroom, playroom, the office, etc. I'm a big fan of letting kids explore, but I will admit that this might not have worked if we had crazy climbers or kids who liked to ransack adult things. The biggest problems we've had are minor ones - the girls steal my pens from the office, they've gotten into the art supplies and opened glitter paint a few times, and they sneak off to the bathroom to fill up their play tea pot frequently. But that's all been worth allowing them to participate in our family's life fully.

 

We moved to a one-story right when they turned 2 and they've always had pretty much free rein around this house. But the lay out works with that and it's also a smaller house, so easier to watch them.

And they pretty much think I need to be glued to them so while they have free rein, they don't really use it.

 

We never had any gates. Rooms like bathrooms had the door closed to keep them out. Other than that, they were never "kept" in one place, unless limited by their own mobility. As a result, they rarely play in the rooms that we don't really use, like the living and dining rooms.

 

We never gated or closed doors. They've always had free reign. I've never had a problem, tho, with them going into places they should not. And if they do something I don't want them to I just ask them not to and they listen. It's honestly always been that way.

I can't imagine them not being free to roam. They go outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs.. wherever. I've never minded. They are not the type who I worry about tho.

GL!

 

Our twins will be 2 at the end of Jan. (we also have a 5 year old and a 7 year old)...we have 5 gates in the house and I don't see us taking them down anytime soon!!!!!!!!!!
shannon

 

Oh, I envy all of you that say you give your little ones free reign of most of you house and have no gates. I can't imagine letting my little destructobots loose throughout the house yet. I have a misguided hope that by letting them explore at least one or two more rooms maybe that will calm down their need to get destructive, but I know I'm kidding myself I have come to realize that I have extremely curious little climbers that have been labeled by more than one person as 'precocious'. That's a word a parent wants to hear, isn't it? Precocious translates into, 'oh, he's cute, but there's no way I'd ever let him loose in my house...I can just imagine the aftermath'

Oh well, it's all an experiment sometimes, huh? Here goes the great 'letting them explore more of the house' experiment. Wish me luck! :crazy:

 

We took all of our gates down 2 months before the twins turned 2. Honestly, I was getting tired of having them up and climbing over them. It took about 2 weeks for them to get used to their new freedom, but once they did everyone was happier. :good: