Baby Gate for 2 Year Old?

[a2mom]

We just moved into a house with a full staircase and have been rigging up a baby gate at the bottom to keep my 23 month old from climbing the stairs on her own. I'm wondering if gates are necessary for a 2 year old...the gate itself says it's for birth to 2 yrs old.

She can climb up & down the stairs pretty well on her own, with occasional stumbles. Anyone else who has stairs with a 2 yr old care to share how you handle the stairs? Is it safe to remove the gate & let her go up & down at will?

[sunshine873]

I think that's a decision that only you can make. How does she do going up & down? Do you feel like she's safe/careful about it? Maybe do some trial runs. Watch her closely & see how she does for a while.

[Glizmo]

DD is almost 2 and we still have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. She's great at going up and down, so the gates aren't really for safety - they're more for keeping her on the floor on I want her on, lol! Otherwise she'll sneak off to wherever she feels like going. So for us, the gates are necessary but not really for safety at this point.

Hope that helps!

[left210]

DD is almost 2 and we still have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. She's great at going up and down, so the gates aren't really for safety - they're more for keeping her on the floor on I want her on, lol! Otherwise she'll sneak off to wherever she feels like going. So for us, the gates are necessary but not really for safety at this point.

Hope that helps!

Same here. DS 22 months does fine with stairs but we still have gate up to keep him upstairs when we do not want him going down. We use retract a gate.

[wellyes]

I think it is worth the expense to corral a child, if nothing else.

In terms of safety, it definitely depends on the child. DD: no way. She likes to try to carry things as she goes up and down and does not remember to hold on. We have a bottom gate, no top gate - but she is never upstairs unattended for even a minute. Friends of ours have had no gate and their child, who's the same age (25 months) has been fine on stairs for 6+ months now.

[arivecchi]

I think I was really comfortable with DS1 climbing and going down stairs when he was about 2.5 yo. Still, I like to close them and make sure he is on the same level of the house I am at all times, so I think gates are definitely useful for kiddos over 2.

[ljackson]

It might also depend on the floor type. If you have wooden stairs and a tile floor at the bottom then a gate would be a great idea. We have fairly thick carpet on our stairs and at the bottom of the stairs, and stopped using stair gates when DD was maybe 18 months or so.

[KrisM]

We moved to this house when DS1 was 16 months and never gated the stairs. He wasn't interested. We never gated anything for DD. For DS2, we gated the stairs. He really wanted to go up at random times. But, we took it down the other day and he is only going up when he's looking for me now. We'll see how it goes.