If you had gates on your stairs....

Javelina22

when did you take them down?  we still have a gate on the girls' room, the bottom of the stairs, and into the kitchen.  we had one on the top of the stairs until about a month ago until it broke.

when i come upstairs to nest i shut the gate on the bottom of the stairs, but lately they have been yelling up the stairs at me.  so i want to start leaving the gate open so they can come up and see me, but DH thinks that it is a bad idea to start leaving the gates open. 

i think that the girls are fine on the stairs ( we have about 14 ) but my DH thinks that we should keep the gates up as long as possible.  i agree with him....i just want to leave the gate open when i am up here cleaning, sorting launry, nesting, etc. so i don't have to listen to them scream at me.....gggrrr!

so i am trying it now, but i just wanted to get my expert opinions.  thanks ladies!!

Alexandra*sMom

We bought a gate but didn't use it until DD2 was crawling.  DD1 was 25 mo when we moved here and never went up/down stairs alone anyway.

lizlemon77

We took down the gates on the stairs as soon as DD was able to do the stairs on her own which was about 18 months.  Our stairs turn and have a landing so it's really just two sets of 4 stairs each.  We wanted DD to be able to go up to her room when she wanted to.  Now we are going to have to put the gates back up because DD #2 is starting to walk.  I'm not sure how DD #1 is going to like that. 

DevonPow

We are going to leave ours up until DS is in a big boy bed. Our main staircase is decently steep, hardwood, and about 15 stairs total so it would be bad if he fell down. Plus, the second floor is only the master suite and a sitting room so DS has no reason to go up there unless we are with him.

I figure once he is in a regular bed I want him to be able to get to our room if necessary.

mags2041

We've still got ours up only because Lucas will sneak upstairs and cause all sorts of mischief.

jettagurl

DS (2 yr, 10 mos) can navigate them just fine. ?We keep the one at the top closed when DD is up there (14 mos), or the one at the bottom closed if she is down but someone else is up there. ?She can go up the stairs fine, but only trys if she knows someone else is up there. ?

winomom22

We haven't had a gate on the stairs since dd was 2.  Our stairs our split though so if she falls its only like 6 stairs and they are really cushioned.  She has free range of the house and we just shut the doors upstairs to the rooms we don't want her in and have covers on the knobs so she can't open them.  We still have a gate going to the basement though, because we don't want her down there, but half the time it's open for the cat to get down there and dd usually won't go down there because she knows she is not supposed to.