2nd time mom feels like a newbie: help me with staircase safety

[american_mama]

I have a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 10 month old, but I've never lived in a place with a staircase and I need advice about how to keep the baby from falling down them. The problem is we live in a one story ranch with a family room in the basement, so there is a lot of traffic downstairs, and the staircase is centrally located. There is a door, but the problem is keeping that door shut, especially with my 3.5 year old. I'm sure that sooner or later, my baby is going to plunge down the stairs to a concrete floor.

Has this happened to anyone? Do most people use baby gates at the top and bottom, and how does that work with siblings who are forgetful? Are there door alarms and do they work? Other suggestions?

[lilycat88]

We use a hard mounted gate at the top of the stairs and we have a portable pressure mounted gate that we use, if needed, at the bottom of the stairs. With only one child, it is easy for us to keep an eye on her when we are downstairs. We also tend to be more engaged with her if we are downstairs. If we aren't going to be paying 100% attention, we put up the pressure mounted gate at the bottom. We tend to let her roam around upstairs, hence the hard mount. That one is always latched except when we are downstairs.

Ours isn't like this but I think there are "self closing" hard mounted gates.

Jamelin
Mom to Susanna born 6/29/2004

[jadamom]

We have baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, which are pretty much always shut. Our 3-yr-old used to wait until we came to undo the latch for her, but now she opens and closes the gates herself and I usually check to make sure it's done right. Our stairs are far away from the family room, so we haven't had a problem with the baby scampering up unnoticed...yet. For the door to our unfinished basement, we put a lock on it up high, out of DD's reach.

[ykc]

Have you looked at child-safe door knob covers?

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/perfectlysafe/doorknobcovers.html

They might not work if your 3 1/2 year old needs to be able to open the door herself, but I think these are what most of my friends with the same problem have used.

[muskiesusan]

I know that this wouldn't work with all babes at that age, but we taught Alex to go down the stairs b/c of this problem. Our playroom is in our basement and Nick was/is constantly going up and down the steps. He knows to keep the door shut, but he (and my DH) would forget on occassion. Nick was going up and down steps at 10 months, so I figured Alex would be able to learn as well, and he did.

Now, I will add that our steps are carpeted and we have a landing breaking up the staircase. Luckily, he never fell.

Good luck, it's hard having an older one around to make things more interesting with the baby.

ETA-After reading the other post about the stair falling, you might not feel safe doing this! LOL. I wanted to add add that Nick is a gate climber and having a gate at the top of the steps all the time wouldn't have been a good idea for him. So, I really pounded it into his head that he needed to have the door shut to "save the baby," which made him feel like he was a superhero, and for those times he did forget, I felt good about Alex knowing how to go down the steps (he practiced this skill everytime we would go down ourselves).

Susan
Mom to Nick 10/01
& Alex 04/04

[Marisa6826]

Hey Girlie!

We never did stair gates. I BOUGHT them, but never installed them. I even sprung for the cool retractable fabric ones...

Anyway. I just taught Soph to go down the stairs on her belly (we have a two story house). As far as the basement goes, it's not finished yet. But when I had the kitchen remodeled, I replaced the old door with a dutch door. That's a door that is split horizontally, so that the bottom half can be closed, but the top half open so I can hear what's going on either upstairs (if I'm down doing laundry) or downstairs, if I'm in the kitchen.

What about getting an automatic door closer from Home Depot? You can get on that is spring loaded and it easily attaches on one of the pins holding the door to the frame (not a permanent thing, which is nice), or something more permanent, like what you would have for a screen or glass door?

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=misc%2fsearchResults.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@1218804733.1124951187@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccckaddfhlkgiffcgelceffdfgidgkg.0&MID=9876

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=misc%2fsearchResults.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@1218804733.1124951187@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccckaddfhlkgiffcgelceffdfgidgkg.0&MID=9876

-m

[ctmom]

we put gates (swing gates) both at the top and bottom of the stairs and dd#1 who was about 3.5yo at the time had to wait for me to open, but she learned quickly how to do it herself. We made the rule that if she didn't lock the gate behind her, she couldn't use the stairs and had to wait for me. It has become second nature to her.

[american_mama]

Marissa:

The automatic closing thing is a great idea. The link isn't loading up for me due to my incompetent DSL provider that can't reliably give us DSL speeds, but I'll know what to look for.

Also, where did you get the Dutch door? We want to replace the basement door with one to help with sound flow to the basement (otherwise, you can't hear anything down there). But the Dutch door won't help a child remember to shut the door behind her. Just tonight, I put doorknob covers on the door, which is a quick fix. We'll see how dd1 handles them tomorrow. But I think a door alarm (I think Bed Bath and Beyond sells window alarms, which might work) or the self-closing hinge might be a better long term solution.

Thanks for all ideas!

-- Karen

[Marisa6826]

I had it made by a lumber/door place. It really wasn't all that expensive. I think a couple hundred bucks and they made it to fit the opening. It took about a week to have it made. I had it pre-hung with the holes for the doorknobs pre-drilled. We were redoing our kitchen at the time, hence the pre-hung. You could probably have one made that doesn't need the frame around it.

It's a stain quality (as opposed to pain quality which is cheaper b/c it has more knots in it) six panel door. The bottom half has a little ledge on it - almost like a little shelf - so it doesn't look like somebody just lopped a door in half, KWIM?

I can take a pic if you need to see it.

-m

[american_mama]

Marisa: Thanks for the offer of the photo, but I know what you are talking about. There is a local church that has doors just like what you are talking about. We have an older house where all the doors are flat (no panels), so I think we would go with the same for a dutch door. We'll also have a contractor redoing the basement, and I wonder if he could convert our existing door, if there is any advantage to doing that.