When Can You Take down the Baby Gate?

K.,

I think this is a question that you can answer... you'll know when you are ready for them to go up and down the stairs on their own. My son turned 2 the beginning of Dec., and he's been going up and down the stairs on his own for a while, but, I stay home with him (and my 3 year old and new baby), and our home is small, so I pretty much always know where he is and what he's doing.

If our house were larger, or if I couldn't always be near when he was heading up and down, I'd still have a gate up.

Jessica

My son turned 2 in October and we have had the gate off the steps for several months. He is very good about going down them hanging on to the rail. We worked on it for a little bit and realized we could get rid of the gate. He has done wonderfully, Of course climbing them was never a problem!

we have the same gate. Since ours is blocking the stairs, we still use it at night (our kids are 4 1/2 and 2 1/2) -we certainly don't want anyone going down the stairs night.

I would say it depends on how much you use it for convenience, rather than just safety. My son is 21 months and can reliably walk up and down the stairs. But we have a multi-level house and even though I am not worried about him falling, sometimes it's nice to keep him away from or on a certain level. (For example, if he's downstairs with the rest of the guys and I'm in the kitchen cooking bacon, I put up the gate so he can't sneak in a surprise me while I'm dealing with grease spatters and hot pans. Or, if I'm upstairs showering and I don't want him exploring the rest of the house by himself, I can keep him confined to the level I'm on. So take a look at how you use the gate--I think they're probably fine without it, but you might want to have it on a little longer! :)

My daughter will be 2 in February and we haven't had a gate up since she was 18 months old. She started steps about 16months old and 18 months she was doing just fine on the steps. Now she goes up them w/o even hanging onto anything but hangs on to railing coming down. I think if they do fine on their own going up/down that the gate should be fine coming down. Take it down for a few days/week see how it goes and if you're not comfortable with it put it back up