IANA parent, but what is the alternative? You have stairs, you have a kid; what now? You try to watch them every second but physical barriers, even imperfect ones, are part of defense in depth.
Darn near every bit of baby/kid gear I’ve fiddled with includes
WARNING: Your kid may overcome this safety device and hurt themselves anyhow. Not our fault. Kids are good at doing that. Sux to be you/them.
I don’t know how much one can conclude about the effectiveness of any given piece of kid gear from either the info or the disclaimers in the paperwork.
One needs a gate at the bottom of the steps also. Most babes have the physical ability to crawl up the steps long before they figure out how to get back down . They get up partway and tumble down, defeating the purpose of the gate at the top.
If you think about it, how easy is it to walk downstairs backwards, even as a grownup?
Which was exactly my point in my prior post that @needscoffee quoted.
Perhaps I misinterpretted them, but I took their point to be something other than “Gates are needed at both ends”. It seemed to me their point was bigger/different; more like “Gates at the top aren’t good, period. Because {whatever …}. Instead at the top you need a {other thing …}”.
Although as I said I might be reading too much into it and they were just agreeing that two gates are needed.
Not miffed at all; you’re one of my favorites. :big hug: I just figured you hadn’t read the last few posts before adding yours. And knowing you’re a bit of an expert on child-rearing …
I always feel bad when I’m misunderstood. Or when I think I was misunderstood. So I try to correct this to assuage that uncomfortable feeling. Sometimes my “correction” makes things worse. IANA Asperger guy, but sometimes I wonder about some of my mental habits.
People understand the concept that things fall down. But it’s still a fact that babies have to learn. When you think about it, it’s not obvious. If you move an object sideways and let go of it, it stays where it is; but when you move it up and let go of it, it moves towards the ground. To a baby, that’s an interesting difference to investigate. It’s all part of learning how the world works.
I don’t really want her crawling about the downstairs at all; the staircase is right by the front door, so I don’t think the floor is very clean, and the kitchen is full of dangerous things. Normally I shut her in the living room but then I can’t see or hear what she’s doing and she tends to sit right behind the door. I’m thinking of getting a baby gate for the living room door instead. Just wish I could go to a shop and try some out, they all say they’re easy to open with one hand, but the one we’ve got is a right pain.
My mom taught us (before we could walk) to crawl down stairs backwards. If we fell over we’d be more likely to land on our (padded) butts instead of our heads. Of course, this was just three stairs down to a room my dad had added on (he was not into construction, so it was on a different level than the house’s slab).
And speaking of pulling things out of drawers… Once my mom came into her bedroom and found me pulling everything out of her lower dresser drawers. She told me to stop or “no!” or something. She said I turned around and in a very cool manner gave her the most evil look she’d ever seen. Then, I turned back around and continued pulling stuff out of the drawer. I love that story.
My baby + keys story, in which I am the protagonist:
When I was about 1-2 years old, my grandfather was visiting and foolishly gave me his keys to play with. Somehow the adults didn’t keep an eye on me, and when he decided to retrieve his keys they were nowhere to be found. Questioning me did not reveal anything. (I have no memory of this of course.)
Something like 30 YEARS later, my parents had a new furnace installed in the house. The keys were found in the ductwork. Apparently I had dropped them down a heating vent, where they sat for 30 years.
I said that “It’s dangerous to trust a gate at the top of the stairs.” They’re usually held in place by tension alone. They can be easily dislodged. ALL baby gates come with this warning.
Eta: it’s also not unusual for adults to topple over the gate at the top of the stairs. As low as they’re positioned for a baby, an adult may not notice it while distracted, or in the night, etc. I’ve seen it happen myself, at a family reunion at night when an adult fell right over it trying to go downstairs.
