Taking down safety gates

Hi ladies!

I have almost 20 month old boys. We have two sets of stairs in our townhouse. One going up and the other going to the basement. My question is this...for those of you with older twins, what age did you feel comfortable taking down the gates?? I don't think we are quite ready here yet but I was just wondering. My boys are very good at getting up the stairs and are now also very good at going down. As soon as they get to the stairs going down they turn around and get on hands and knees and go down feet first. Although I know they can go up and down easily I still know that they get excited and distracted and I would worry that they would not remember they have to be careful around the stairs. So like I said, we aren't ready yet to do this but just was curious when most of you did feel it was safe to not have them anymore.

Thanks for any and all input!

 

We've quit using the gate at the bottom of the stairs - that would keep them from going up on their own. That ended when they left the house to go into daycare, around 2.25 yrs. (Had a nanny before that, and had to have the gate to keep the kids from coming to my room while I was working during the day - defeats the purpose of a nanny....) We probably stopped using the stair gate sometime before that on weekends when we were all home together, but I can't remember when. Once they were going up and down the stairs pretty safely I was OK with it, and I was usually within hearing distance and would come to watch when I heard them on the move.

The gate at the top of the stairs will stay for some time to come - the kid's bedrooms are up there and I do not want them trying to navigate the stairs in the dark when they are half asleep. I leave it open when they are just playing upstairs, though we probably only started that within the last 6-9 months - prior to that I'd keep it locked regardless of when they were upstairs. It's a lot easier for them to fall down than it is for them to fall on their way up - and I'd catch them a lot quicker when they were headed up.

So, I'd leave it up to your instincts - when you feel comfortable taking the gates down. When you know you can trust them to safely go up and down each time - I still catch mine trying to do it the adult way - not holding on, and they are over 3. So having the gates up for safety when you can't always be there to watch them is a good thing regardless of how old they are.

 

Brandi-we never had gates at the steps with Caroline, but it was easy to watch just one kid. For Emilie and Trevor we took the gates down about 1 month ago, so at 26 months. We close all the bedroom doors upstairs so they can't get into any of the rooms. They can go up and down the stairs very well.

 

We still have gates that keep them from the stairs since they are starting to want to walk down the stairs and not bump on their bottoms. Once they get the hang of that, we might take them down, but I'm doing the "wait and see" thing for now.

 

We moved into this house when the boys were 20 months old - we live in a backsplit and have about 8 stairs going down and 6 stairs going up. We didn't install baby gates for them at all and they did fine.

 

the one at the bottom of the steps has been open for a month or month and a half - the one at the top of the steps I only close if they're upstairs in my room watching TV and I'm cleaning or something else - its only because Abby likes to try to go downstairs while carrying a blanket and 2 stuffed animals - I'm terrified she'll go a$$ over tincups down the steps on me!

 

Hey Brandi,
We still have gates, so I am anxious to see what advice you get.

 

Thanks for all the advice so far. I appreciate it. I guess it's just whenever we feel comfortable with it. But those of you who have taken the gates down at the bottom of the steps going up but have left the gate at the top up, what do the kids do if they climb to the top of the stairs but there's a closed gate there?? Mine would just think it was fun to play on the stairs and I wouldn't be comfortable with that.

 

The gate at the top of the stairs is only closed when they are upstairs. When they are down, I leave it open for just that reason - I wouldn't want them to get to the top of the steps and have no where else to go and start playing.

 

QUOTE(Brandi78 @ May 27 2008, 10:51 AM) [snapback]794903[/snapback]
Thanks for all the advice so far. I appreciate it. I guess it's just whenever we feel comfortable with it. But those of you who have taken the gates down at the bottom of the steps going up but have left the gate at the top up, what do the kids do if they climb to the top of the stairs but there's a closed gate there?? Mine would just think it was fun to play on the stairs and I wouldn't be comfortable with that.


They'd climb over. That was why we took them down -- more dangerous to have them climbing over the gate than to not have a gate up at all... well, that and they can open the "childproof" latch so gates were rendered completely useless around their second birthday. I know some people keep them up much longer, though, and their kids don't go over the top. I guess it depends on whether you have climbers or not.

 

We took ours down at about 19 1/2 months. Both go up and down fine . . . DD is much better than DS. At times they would want to be carried and I felt that it was more dangerous for me to try to carry them and manuver the gates. Since the gates have been down 2 months we've had no problems . . . knock on wood. Removing the gates also made the stairs less interesting. We discussed removing them earlier; however, we didn't feel that they were quite ready. I think you just have to wait until you are confident.

 

We'll be leaving the gates up for quite a while - my girls just turned 2. I'm not comfortable that they can go up and down without me watching. Tthey tend to get distracted or they're pushing and pulling each other on the steps. I would never get anything done if I didn't have the gate.

Since they don't climb out of cribs - yet - and can't open the doors, we don't have one at the top. We will be getting one very soon.

It's funny - we never needed a gate with my older DD. It would not have occurred to her to climb up and down the stairs once we told her "no". Twins are a different thing altogether.

 

Thanks for asking this Brandi. I was wondering the same thing recently. Mine are staying up for a while longer since the girls are still a little shaky coming down.

 

We took them down a little after they turned two. My son took one out of the wall a couple of times and the last time, we just left it off. That was for one set of steps, we went ahead and removed the next one a couple of weeks later (3rd level of the house). They take the steps with no problems at all.

 

As usual, I am in the minority here. Gates til 3 with John mostly because I didn't want him going upstairs without telling me. Gate at the kitchen too because I don't feel like getting locks on the cabinets... and my guys can open door knobs, even with the door knob covers on them. Yeah yeah, I know what you are thinking--- they are geniuses.

 

We still have gates, and I don't think we'll be getting rid of them any time soon. ardon: They have a tendency to go and hide if the gate is open and that's no fun. They are great at going up and down, but I'm not ready to play hide and seek all the time.


QUOTE(Sarah© @ May 27 2008, 08:07 PM) [snapback]796047[/snapback]
Yeah yeah, I know what you are thinking--- they are geniuses.


That they are my friend, that they are!

 

QUOTE(Sarah© @ May 27 2008, 08:07 PM) [snapback]796047[/snapback]
As usual, I am in the minority here. Gates til 3 with John mostly because I didn't want him going upstairs without telling me. Gate at the kitchen too because I don't feel like getting locks on the cabinets... and my guys can open door knobs, even with the door knob covers on them. Yeah yeah, I know what you are thinking--- they are geniuses.


They are geniuses!!! Mine have started turning the knobs on the doors but not well enough to open them. Sometimes I feel like my boys would be OK without the gates but on the other hand I want to know where they are. I know the excitement of the stairs would wear off (as mentioned above) but maybe we'll revisit this when we move into a new house this year. Probably by then they'll be 2 and maybe we won't have to out them up at the new place. We'll have to see. :unsure:

Thanks all you ladies who are responding. I really appreciate it. As I said before, I guess it will just have to be when we feel completely safe with them going up and down. I guess I was kind of hoping for a "when they reach X age you can take them down!!" :laughing: Nothings ever that clear cut!

 

I still have the gates up, but don't really use them anymore. They know we don't want them going upstairs without an adult, and they stay on the main floor well. Once in a while they'll sneak up there, and then I just pull the gate out for a while. I do still use a gate at the entrance to my office to keep them out of that somewhat messy, non-childproofed room.

I do not have gates at the top of the stairs (there's a door at the top of the basement stairs). But I will be putting a gate at the top of the stairs once they move to big girl beds, which we plan on doing at age 3.