When did you take down safety gates?

My boys are 25 months and I 'm just curious when you took down your safety gates. They are very good at going up and down the stairs so I no longer have fears that they will tumble down them. It's more to keep them out of other parts of the house. If we're in the basement, I don't want one or both going upstairs without me.

 

I took them down around 2.5. :good: I didn't do all of them at the time because I didn't want them upstairs alone so they wouldn't get into trouble. But by 3 I realized they were okay up there alone and I took them all down.

 

I was wondering the same thing. Mine do pretty well going up and down the steps but I also am afraid that they will be constantly playing on the steps and I don't trust them upstairs by themselves. That's the only baby gate we have up right now is to block the steps.

 

Same here. It was an adjustment to not have them contained anymore and I really wanted to put them up. But I stuck to it and it eventually worked out.

 

Today we only have 1 gate up and it's a gate that we've had since before I was pregnant. It keeps the dogs in the back room and also keeps the girls out of the dog's room. All other gates are gone.

 

Mine have never been contained per se. When he could go up/down stairs efficiently they came down. We live in a split entry, so stairs are fact of life. So, they came down when Evan was probably about 17 months old.

 

Around 2 1/2, but we've recently had to put some back up because we are under construction again (bathroom remodel). Thankfully my girls are understanding about the whole thing, and have free-reign at the sitter's house so it isn't too bad.

 

We took down most of ours some time ago, but we kept the ones at the top of the stairs (to the 2nd floor bedrooms) and to the top of our basement stairs, since both staircases are really steep. For the stairs to the 2nd floor, I didn't want them accidently falling down the stairs on the way to the bathroom at night (since the hallway is small and with a wrong turn, that could happen). We just took down that one at almost age 4.

The one to the basement is totally convenience of my part -- we keep their art supplies down there and have had more than one art "surprise" on them (or on the walls) if they go down there unsupervised, so I like the gate for my own piece of mind.

Good Luck!

Meg

 

We won't take the one down at their bedroom door and the downstairs staircase, until I know they won't get into things in the bathroom or escape the house. It probably won't happen until at least 3 1/2! I had 3 children who escaped the house. So we have hotel latches, but DH has to leave the house in the morning for work. The gate between upstairs and downstairs will stay for a LONG time.
Hopefully you all have very well behaved kiddies who don't like to wander. LOL I just happen to have 3! Oh well....I would love to get rid of the gates!

 

Mine came down at 18 months. They were walking up and down stairs very well for their age - and the steps are pretty short in my house. I encouraged free roaming as much as possible - all cabinets locked though and all the upstairs doors had those doorknob covers!

 

We never had safety gates because our house is small and doesn't have any stairs. But it was around age 2 that we started to feel like we could let them out of our sight for a few minutes and nothing really bad would happen. We did keep a lot of doors closed (especially the one to the room where the computers are) until they were able to open doors by themselves around age 2.5.

 

We have one gate up, and that's to keep the dogs out of the cat box. :lol:

We have locks on the doorknobs and just shut the rooms we don't want them in.

 

About 2.5 but the last one (living room to dinning room) stayed up a little longer. I still have one gate around the radiator under my front window, we need to get a radiator cover but they are expensive.

 

wow, i'm amazed at the answers! i've been wanting to ask this q for some time... i feel badly cuz we are NO WHERE NEAR READY to take down our gates. right now we have them blocking off the kitchen and each bedroom and bathroom. i can't imgaine letting them in those places w/out supervision for more than a minute or two... i feel badly about this! but mine are two extremely able-bodied boys (they jump and climb on everything!) and both are a little bit immature. i just don't think it's a combo i can trust to have free rein just yet! but i'm hoping soon......

one last thing... we do not gate them in when they're sleeping because we like them to be able to come out on their own when they wake up.

 

Mine turned 4 in Sept. and we just took the gate down at the top of the stairs. They could go up/down stairs well, but I wanted to make sure I knew where they were and when. I have one that wakes up very early and does things without waking us up. I've since found that it worked well to keep the dog out of the litter box and cat food that we keep down in the laundry room b/c the dog is contantly try to go down there now.

 

We took them all down at 23 months. It took a few days for them to get used to their new freedom, but everyone was happier once the gates were down.

 

Somewhere between 2 and 3, when my son had taken one out of the wall for the second time. Got tired of repairing it and the wall and they were doing the stairs with no issues. Good luck!

 

Mine are almost 2 and I can't imagine getting rid of them for now! We have one to block the stairs/entryway (mostly convenience as we store things there because of lack of space) and one to block the kitchen. When we finally move we'll probably just block the stairs and the kitchen - I absolutely can't imagine them in the kitchen!

 

We took ours down a couple months ago, mine were for the stairs...they have a pretty good handle on those, the rest of my house if pretty much child proofed and I try to (as much as I can) keep an eye on where they are at and what they are doing. ....sigh, my current battle is how to get them to stop using chairs to climb on the kitchen counter!! I have an open kitchen/living room or I can promise I would have the kitchen gated off for this exact reason!

 

Mine are 2 years 3 months and I'm keeping mine up. Dont' care what anyone else does. I also have a 10 month old, but still don't want my kids to get into everything. If I owned the house I lived in then I could install cupboard locks but I don't own this house so I have less effective locks. I'm a bit of a safety person and like to watch my kids. I've still seen my daughter climbing on the glass table -- so we still have some immature ones here too.

Heather

 

I just started installing them! LOL. Soo funny. I had to buy them when they started climbing out of their beds and wandering the house at all hours! I still keep the stairway one up when the boys are running like mad chasing each other thru the upstairs, I can't risk a fall. We'll have ours up for a while. I did just throw our "extra tall" one into the spare room cuz Nic is climbing over it so it's useless now (after 2 weeks, and 80 bucks down the drain) but otherwise, I'd have kept it up! *see thread about tall gates.

Anyway, I'll keep them up as long as I feel like I need/want them to keep someone safe