A poll about gates and climbing

The crib climbing question brought up something that's been bugging me. I am always surprised when I read about people using baby gates with 3 year olds because I don't understand why their kids don't just climb over them. If you have preschoolers and still use gates, have you actively taught them not to climb over or do they just not seem inclined to do it?

 

We don't have our gates up anymore and the kids turned 3 in July. Mine never climbed them (only by luck I am sure). However. Whit took the gates out of the wall (yep, we have the holes to prove it). So...after he took them out one last time (yep, he did it a couple of times), we decided to leave them down. This happened right after they turned two!

 

I guess I should have answered for myself... We had the one-hand release kind with metal bars (Kidco Safeway) where you have to push in a button while lifting and pushing it to the open position. T&T climbed it by taking off shoes and socks and putting the bars between their big toe and second toe then climbing literally like monkeys up and over. They were under 2. By 2, they could push the button and lift it open and that was when we took down the top of stairs gate because they managed to push it past the stop and were swinging on it like a carnival ride out over the staircase. Perhaps we would have gotten a little longer use out of the plexiglass solid surface gates but they can climb onto our top loader washer without a step stool by walking their feet up the smooth front so that wouldn't have lasted to 3 either (even if they hadn't figured out the concept of using anything they can push to step up on but they got that a loooooooong time ago).

 

wow Deb - you're boys really are like two little monkey climbers! :shok:

mine climb things like furniture (couches, chairs etc...) but have never tried to climb out of their cribs (in fact they climb in them at night) or the baby gates - we still have them attached to the wall but the only one I use very occasionally is the one at the top of the steps just so they don't go flying down the steps if I'm in the shower - however they've figured out there's enough room under it to just slide under (very old house had to mount the gate at the top higher to fit into molding on the opposite wall to close it up...so if they want to get downstairs they can...

 

We have gates at bottom of the stairs and at their room door (so they can not go down the stairs). They have never tried to climb them. We never talked about 'not' climbing them---that said my girls are not terribly fond of climbing.

The gate to their room is the step/foot pedal---they have jumped on it and they dont weigh enough to open it and have not ever tried since.

The bottom of the stairs gate is a lift/latch---never tried to climb it, though they do 'shake' it a lot!

They are just 3.

 

Mine are almost 3. We used to have a long area gate sectioning off the living room but took that down when they turned 2. They weren't climbing over it, we just decided we didn't need it anymore. We still occassionally put up a regular old wooden one to keep them out of the kitchen when I'm getting ready in the morning or something, but they've never really tried to climb over it.

 

My girls were under 2 and climbing fools. That said, we still use them at this point, but they finally seem to understand the reason for them being there.

 

Mine are 31 months and haven't yet climbed a gate. I just have one that I use to block off my office. They just haven't even tried. I will take our second gate and put it at the top of the stairs when they move to big girl beds, just to be safe.