do you gate your baby?

Kellyete

I mean do you gate off a baby safe room and let them play there or let them roam the house within eye's view.  If you do this how do you keep them in the same room as you?  Currently we have an open concept kitchen/living room with a very wide gate across the room and DS gets the living room.  I feel that he is getting too confined in this one room mostly with all of the bigger toys we have received for his birthday.  Whenever we have the gate open he bolts down the hall or he is in the cat's water dish.  I would like to give him more freedom, but maybe it is too early?

johnsoar

She is gated to the main level.  She roams the living room, dining room and kitchen. 

Nicole731

DS has free roam of the house, but I am always by his side. If I see him wandering off I will follow him and redirect him to where I am.

Mominator

My kids have free reign of the 1st floor except for the kitchen. So they have the foyer, living room, dining room and playroom. They are only allowed in the kitchen supervised. Even though it is childproofed I still feel safer just keeping them out.

fIowerchild

I let him roam, no gates, not even at the top of the stairs. I am not a SAHM, so maybe if I was I would get sick of the chase game. But I love running after him, all giggles and squeals.

alaskajamaica

I just put up a gate for the kitchen yesterday.  I could not take the stress anymore of figuring out where he was, is the oven still hot, the floor is dirty etc.

 We had a gate- fence thingy and put him in there a few times earlier on and he figured out how to knock it down.  We converted it into a long gate instead of a circle gate to block the tv and radio.  It looks terrible in the living room, but this too shall pass.

alaskajamaica

we also keep one bathroom door closed.

Mc_Newlywed

We live in a townhouse so the stairs are gated but nothing else. ?I just do what I can to lock cabinets and close all the doors and then I let her have free reign. ?

She generally stays in the same room that I'm in. ??

funchicken

We got rid of the gates a couple of months ago.  She has free reign in the house.  We put all of the hazards out of reach or in storage, but she's a lot better than she used to be about staying away from things she's not allowed to touch.  Our apartment is small, and we don't have any stairs, though.

Toni1019

We live in a ranch style house and DS has full range of it. We just moved here at the beginning of the month. All we do is keep the bathroom and basement doors shut, and put locks on the cabinet under the kitchen sink so he cant get cleaners. He rarely plays in his room and our computer is in our living room, so I can see him when he plays.

Dobie_Mama

We have a split level and DD has access to the top (main) floor.  The stairs are gated.  We keep the doors to the bathroom and our bedroom closed.  She has free reign of the kitchen, living room, and her bedroom.

momtoRaegan041008

My daughter roams the house!  I always follow her though, she likes to go into the bathrooms and get into garbage cans.

thomas&lynn

We are in a 2 bdrm single floor apartment but we close her bedroom door to keep it cat free, the bathroom door because I am paranoid, and we gate off the hallway that has the second bedroom stemming from it because the hallway has the cat box and pet dish bowls. She's left with the living room/dining room and kitchen to roam "free" (not so free I guess if it's only 2 rooms!!! lol).

Until this morning it was fine but now we have added a play kitchen, 2 roll-on toys, and a corn popper and it's at it's limit for space. I think I'm going to stuff the walker, roll-on toys, and popper into the pnp at night just so DH and I have a normal environment again for a few hrs a day!

KKMMex

fIowerchild:

I let him roam, no gates, not even at the top of the stairs. I am not a SAHM, so maybe if I was I would get sick of the chase game. But I love running after him, all giggles and squeals.

This.  I SAH though.  DD has been backing down the stairs by herself since she was 13 months old.  She learned how to climb up the stairs even earlier.

The one exception:  I close all the bathroom doors just so she won't "play" in the toilets.

Mrs.Donkey

Our house is really wide open, so he has access to the office/play area (supposed to be a formal living and dining) the kitchen, the family room and his room. ?Every other room is kept shut. ?We just keep finding new things to babyproof.

jays_bride

Only gate we have blocks the stairs. DD pretty much has free roam of the entire upper floor ~ except the bathroom now that she has discovered the fun she can have with TP!

wendyj

We bought a playyard to stretch out across our living room furniture so that he is confined to that space (we have an open layout, too). Otherwise, I would constantly be running after him. Right now, he'd much rather be moving around than playing with his toys.

Tess12

We gate off the stairs, so she has the whole downstairs.  Admittedly the whole downstairs is not that big.

mrsain1105

We have a gate that separates DD's bedroom, bathroom, and a room we use as a family room from the rest of the house - but the purpose of the gate is mostly to keep the dog out of the cat box.  I mostly follow DD wherever she goes, but we also have a small house - so she could be in the livingroom while I'm in my bedroom and if the door is open I can still see her.

Sally J

Our two have free reign of the house except for the bathrooms (toilets and toilet paper), the kitchen (dog food/water and trash) and office (computers).  We just teach not to touch certain things (table lamps, the tv) and baby proof things that aren't safe or that we don't want destroyed (book shelves, closets).

They love exploring and we can hear them in all the rooms.  We don't chase them all over and allow them to play where they want.  We check on them every 5-10 min if we haven't seen them in awhile (or if it gets too quiet).

It's been like this since they became mobile around 7 months old.

tmp-354536812503300

No gates anywhere. I keep all the bathroom doors shut we're in a townhouse with 4 different levels. DS is never on any level without me but he's got free reign of whatever room we're in.

Deltadee

We don't have any gates up but we do keep the doors to the bathrooms and office/spare room closed because none of those rooms are child-proofed.

lite-bright

We rarely gate anymore -- including the stairs. DD has been going up and down them by herself for months.?

The only time we use the gate is when we want to confine her upstairs or downstairs for short periods. When I take a shower, she has the run of our upstairs -- loft, her bedroom, our bedroom (the master bathroom is in our bedroom). I close the door to any room I don't want her to have access to (like the second bathroom), make sure our dogs are downstairs, and put up the gate. She likes to peek in on me frequently while I'm showering, so I don't worry. ?

Downstairs, we have a very open floor plan. The only room we could conceivably gate off is the kitchen and it just doesn't make sense. She has the run of the living room, dining area, kitchen, and front room. If we want her to stay downstairs, we put up the gate.

I don't always have to have her in sight; I just check on her frequently. I can hear her (or her toys) very easily and things are baby-proofed. DD is perfectly capable of going upstairs, playing with her toys and then coming back downstairs by herself.?

MattsWifey<3

right now she has the  main living room and the kitchen.

we will be removing the gate and just blocking the stairs soon.