Baby gates at night?

May 18, 2018 6:47 AM

If you live in a 2-story (or more) house with the bedrooms on a top floor and you have a child, do you keep the baby gate closed and locked at night?

We have a 2-story condo, and both bedrooms (ours and KidBebo's) are on the second floor. Right now KidBebo is 14 months old and sleeps in a crib in his room with the door closed, so that's all good.

We need to get a baby gate for the top of the stairs. HOWEVER, for dumb, cat-related reasons, we would like to be able to leave the stairs UNGATED (gate open) during the night.

Parent A says: No problem! KidBebo is currently trapped in a crib, probably won't move to a full bed until he's like....2 or 2.5? And at that point we can figure something out, like keeping his door closed or whatever. Even if it wouldn't be IDEAL for the kid to go downstairs alone (because shenanigans), a 2.5-year-old isn't likely to FALL down the stairs right?

Parent B says: No, stairs must be gated while we all sleep. Maybe not right now while KidBebo is in the crib, but definitely when he's in a real bed.

What say you, AskMefi?

posted by Bebo to Human Relations (38 answers total)

Response by poster: Note: Not interested in suggestions about modifying the gate, or about those baby gates with pet holes. This is about whether you think it's unsafe/unwise to have NO GATE during the night when the child in question is like 2 or 3 years old.
posted by Bebo at 6:50 AM on May 18, 2018

Can you put the gate across the door of the kid's bedroom? Also, when he figures out how to climb out of the crib (he will) he'll also be able to climb over the gate.

Edit: (in before seeing your additional comment, sorry)
posted by bondcliff at 6:51 AM on May 18, 2018 [8 favorites]

Just anecdotally when kid was two and we were staying in a two story house, I had to get him one night because he was sick and take him to the bathroom and clean him up. He was a little wired and upset and dashed away from me into the dark hallway. The stair gate was not closed and we had a very close call. I would prefer to gate. Yes if kid can climb kid can climb but just a few extra seconds can make a difference.
posted by sestaaak at 6:58 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

lilozzy didn't move out of her crib until she had just turned 4 (she's pretty small and didn't show any inclination toward it until just about then). We have the same child / cat situation concerns that you have. Nobody's afraid she's going to wander downstairs in the middle of the night, but we are concerned that she'll stumble half-asleep out of her room and accidentally tumble down the stairs (they're very close to her door). I would have the same concern with a younger child.

The solution was a cheap (really, under $20, something like this) wooden pressure gate that we install at night about eight inches off the ground. It's enough to prevent an accidental stumble while still allowing cats to pass underneath.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:58 AM on May 18, 2018 [4 favorites]

Not a parent but I've babysat enough small human monkeys to know that they WILL escape their crib/room at some point, almost certainly. And accidents happen all the time. Likely to fall? No, probably not. Possibly could fall? Oh yeah.

I'm team gate.
posted by phunniemee at 6:59 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

It will really depend on when they are out of the crib and their facility at that time with stairs.

If they don't get out of a crib until 3 1/2, its probably superfluous. At 2? I'd want one.
posted by JPD at 7:01 AM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I would just put one of those things on the inside doorknob so he can’t open his door, and keep the bedroom door shut.
posted by amro at 7:08 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is one of those questions you can answer as you get to know your child.

Our family:

Child A: Would lie in a mattress on the floor asking if he could get up at 3.25. Always came for our bedroom first. Did fall down the stairs once at 4 but it was during the day. We kept the gate latched.

Child B: Climbed out of crib before he could walk. Climbed on top of an upright piano at 6:15 am while one parent was in the bathroom. We had to unlatch the gate at the top of the stairs specifically so that the child would not climb it and then fall down the stairs. Never fell down the stairs but did climb the bookcase at the bottom of the stairs, where the plug in the drywall promptly failed and the bookcase fell over pinning the child between the stairs and the bookcase. Fortunately it was a light half-width Ikea bookcase, also, the child thought it was hilarious.

Both children: defeated all safety latches not involving keys before the age of 2, including learning how to leverage toys to pop the knob cover open and using magnets in toys to open magnetic locks.

Gate situation: Mounted on the wall at the top of the stairs with enough space beneath for a cat, but not a toddler head, to fit under.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:16 AM on May 18, 2018 [6 favorites]

Have three children that were at one time 1, 2, and 3 (they are all one year apart). We also were a cat family. The cats were actually mine before we got married. To me, this is a simple question.

What is more important to you, mitigating the risk of your child having a catastrophic event even if the odds of that event are infinitesimal or the cat having access to the upstairs? Only you and your spouse can decide if you want to play the odds.

Turns out, only our third child was a crib climber. He would climb out and hit the ground with a thud. We would hear it on the monitor (before video monitors) followed by him laughing as if he just broke out of Attica. He never left his room, but he did learn how to smear diaper rash cream all over the walls and furniture. And himself. The cats learned to stop crying at the gate or be on the top side of it.

Team gate here. We decided we could not live with the guilt if something happened that we could have prevented although we acknowledged that that event was very unlikely, very very unlikely to happen.

If you decide to leave the gate open, I would not leave it such as given the appearance of being closed because if junior thinks they can lean on it like a railing, they will and they will tumble. Just my $0.02
posted by AugustWest at 7:35 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

For our 3 boys we never gated our stairs. All kids are different, though.
posted by beccaj at 7:37 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Nthing, it depends on your baby. My baby is a climber and is wicked fast. She is 15 months, but to avoid her climbing out (and possibly falling off) of her crib, we moved her to a floor bed. She usually comes walking over to my room first, but she will throw herself against any gates or just climb them and it seems safer to us to just let her take the stairs, which she is proficient at.

I guess it also depends on your stairs, carpeted and built to code are pretty easy for babies, but hardwood or any kind of steep would be a lot scarier.
posted by stormygrey at 7:39 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would say yes on the gate if the kid's not entirely confident on stairs and handrail use (and if the handrail is not within reach, absolutely yes on the gate.)

Two non-modification ideas: a nightlight at the top of stairs is pretty much always a good idea, whether gated or not. And, uh, one way to allow a cat to get over a gate, without doing anything that would damage the gate, would be to cover it with burlap.
posted by asperity at 7:42 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

We took the baby gate off the stairs when the youngest was about 4...and then put it back up again about a month later because surprise! She was a sleepwalker and fell down the stairs during a sleepwalking episode. That was fun (thankfully she was fine, nothing broken). We felt okay removing it again when she was about 10, when the sleepwalking stopped.
posted by cooker girl at 7:44 AM on May 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Never had a gate at the top of my stairs. Both children have survived to the age of 8+.
posted by trbrts at 7:48 AM on May 18, 2018

There is a reason we lived in one-story buildings until us kids were in middle school.

Team gate. Team 2-gates actually, 1 gate is just an invitation to climb up.
posted by Ahniya at 7:48 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

In our house a gate at the top of the stairs was a greater risk for parents sleep-deprivedly bashing into it in the dark. We only put a gate up during the day when we were doing chores upstairs with the kid, and he once climbed over it and slowly surfed down the stairs in the 30 seconds it took me to pee (post-crawling, pre-walking), so we didn't do it after that.
posted by tchemgrrl at 7:57 AM on May 18, 2018

We have second floor bedrooms and a big open staircase between the kids' rooms and ours. It totally depends on the kid, the stairs, and is probably informed by the fact that the kid is growing up in a house with stairs. When we moved to this house we put up a gate for a while because we were worried our **six year old** would get confused and fall down a staircase they weren't expecting. On the other hand our current three year old has grown up in this house and we're a lot less worried. But again it depends on the kid; I suspect that by the time you need to make the call you'll know enough about their relationship with stairs that nothing any of us have written here will be important.
posted by range at 8:23 AM on May 18, 2018

I have a baby gate at the top of my stairs to keep *dogs* contained, and my cats go over them with barely a thought. If the issue is giving a cat access to up and down areas, you probably don't need to worry about it.
posted by mccxxiii at 8:38 AM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

I hadn't really thought about it until seeing this question. Currently have a 1 year old in a crib, and 3 and 5 year olds in regular beds. I agree with Parent A, yet we have a gate at the top of the stairs and close it every night.

It is useful during the day when the 1 year old is cruising around upstairs, but I'm not even really sure why we continue to close it at night other than it's just habit.

So to answer your question specifically, I'd say animal access is a good enough reason to leave it open. #TeamParentA
posted by hankscorpio83 at 8:44 AM on May 18, 2018

KidBebo is currently trapped in a crib,

Baby T was climbing out of his crib while in a sleep sack at 16 months.

You could get something - a strap, a door handle block - for the baby's room to keep the kid inside and also keep the gate open at night.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:48 AM on May 18, 2018

We had a gate and generally kept it closed (the cat was able to climb over it) but needn't have bothered - kid never climbed anything (still doesn't) and on the rare occasions when we forgot to close it, we'd hear him come out of his room in the morning, tut gently and close it for us. We dispensed with the gate when he was... maybe 3.5? Can't remember.

You know your kid; if yours is as health & safety conscious as ours, it might make sense not to have a gate.
posted by altolinguistic at 9:12 AM on May 18, 2018

2 story house with 2 young kids, 1 cat, 1 dog. Kiddo #1 reached down the stairs for a toy and tumbled down a flight as a toddler, got a hairline fracture and an arm cast, is now a very cautious kid. Kiddo #2 has tumbled down a few steps with nothing worse than a bump (usually when he's tired and not paying attention to what he's doing), but is nowhere near as cautious as #1.

While we leave the gate open most of the day, we close it at night. Our cat can jump up onto it and over, and does so regularly. She prefers to walk through the gate and will meow at us if we're behind it and it's closed, but even though she's getting on in years, she's still a pretty good leaper. We're mostly worried about a sleepy kid accidentally tumbling down the stairs at night, now that they're old enough to walk up and down the stairs without using the railing for balance and do so frequently, and because they do get up in the middle of the night with some frequency.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:36 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

There is no point in planning a year ahead in the life of a one-year-old unless it's actually something you have to commit to now - there are so many lifestyle and behavioral changes that will happen by the time he's sleeping in a bed that any decision you make now is essentially a blind guess. Like, your kid might start sleepwalking, your cat might not get along with the kid and have to be rehomed, your kid might insist on sleeping in a sleeping bag in the kitchen, your kid might have a major sleep regression and you end up cosleeping until he's 5 ... Don't waste energy deciding stuff now you're just going to have to re-litigate later.
posted by inkyz at 9:50 AM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

Gate, closed and locked at all times, no exceptions.

Literally nothing is worth the risk of your kid tumbling down the stairs in the dark.
posted by shanek at 9:53 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

My kid (a climber) fell down the stairs head first when she was pretty young and the gate wasn't across. That was a heartstopper, let me tell you. (Don't get me started on how many ways my kid figured out how to kill herself in a carefully babyproofed house). Most cats can figure out how to get over a gate if they need to; ours certainly did.
posted by Peach at 10:00 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

They make baby and pet gates with little cat size openings at the bottom of them. Gate with a tiny opening for the cat.
posted by ilovewinter at 10:08 AM on May 18, 2018

Sorry. Didn't see your added info about not wanting a gate with a hole.
posted by ilovewinter at 10:10 AM on May 18, 2018

2.5-year-old isn't likely to FALL down the stairs right?

I mean what’s ‘likely’ to you? Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death among 1-4 year olds. Say a 2.5 year old falls down the stepson e for every 1k attempts. That’s not especially common but you have to weigh both risks and hazards.

I wouldn’t risk it for four steps (broken arm), and certainly not for a full flight (broken neck or death).
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:58 AM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

If the two choices are truly gate or no gate once you get to that point, gate 100%. We are in the same situation - our son sleeps in a bed on the floor above us. We don't use a gate because his doorknobs are child-proofed.
posted by Pax at 11:14 AM on May 18, 2018

By the time my daughter was in a toddler bed (3) she had figured out how to open baby gates, so it was a moot point. She never got out of bed until she stopped using diapers at night at 4, now she gets out of bed to come wake me to go with her to the bathroom which is on the same floor. We do have a night light by the stairs, so there's no chance she'd stumble in the dark.

Some kids get old enough to outgrow (not all, obviously) baby proofing surprisingly quickly.
posted by lydhre at 11:59 AM on May 18, 2018

We moved from an apartment into a house when our son was not quite 3. We never had a gate in the apartment because we didn't feel there was any part of the apartment he shouldn't go to.He was already in a bed when we moved into the house. (He had fallen on the floor while climbing out of the crib at 18 months. Got a bed the next day.)

We never got a gate for the stairs in the house. When we moved in, we did some training with him on safety on the stairs, practiced it with him, watched and spotted him carefully the first few times he went up and down. In the end we were satisfied his skill was sufficient. Also, the only place possible to put the gate was right at the edge of the top step. So if kid climbed over the gate, they were set up to fall down the steps.

Most of my encounters with these gates make me wonder whether they cause more injuries than they prevent. A fair number of them have a horizontal bar just above floor level that's a tripping hazard even when it's open. I've watched people get lazy with them and just try to step over instead of opening it, and fall that way. The ones held onto the wall by pressure seem like junk to me. You'll need to repaint anyways, so you might as well drill it into the wall.

Are you sure the cat can't get themselves over the gate on their own?

You and your partner are going to encounter many, many places where you may disagree on an appropriate level of safety as your little one grows up. Sports, bicycles, traffic, swimming, amusement parks, appropriate age to go to the park/store by themselves, the list goes on. You won't always agree. Be mindful that it's not really possible to be dispassionate and objective about these sort of things. It's helpful for you to check in with one another frequently about family policy on these areas of risk. Avoid doing this when the little one is around, because otherwise the more risk averse parent has to be the bad parent who says no. Risk tolerant parent should discuss new things with Risk Averse parent well before decisions need to be made. If you're risk tolerant parent, don't go to risk averse parent the day before registration closes for karate classes to have that conversation. It will work out better if that conversation starts a couple of weeks before with a temperature check: "What do you think about karate classes for kid?"

This one doesn't seem to be a hill to die on, unless cat sits there crying at gate to be lifted over 4 times a night, destroying your sleep. Being Ask Metafilter, We Are Here For Dumb Cat-Related Reasons, so maybe this is also a question about how the cat's needs can be met even if the gate stays closed? I dunno.
posted by thenormshow at 12:46 PM on May 18, 2018

I definitely think you should gate the top of the stairs. You probably ought to think about gating the bottom as well, because your kiddo is going to try crawling up them when you're not looking.
posted by Songdog at 1:17 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would gate because even if kiddo is a great stair-navigator, there’s a chance they won’t be in the middle of the night when they’re half-asleep.
posted by Night_owl at 1:25 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

We have 2 toddlers in cribs and have a gate at the top of the stairs and bottom, plus one on the older toddlers bedroom, we have the gates open when they’re asleep but when they are awake and moving we have them closed. They go up and down stairs okaaaaaayish but I also use the gates when I want them to stay in the area I want them to stay. We use the baby dan accordian gates and a cat could easily scoot underneath and they disappear when not in use... no tripping on the bar below. It was totally worth the extra money to buy them and have them installed.
posted by catspajammies at 1:34 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'd say this isn't a Parent A vs. Parent B problem, it's an individual child issue...
Is the presence and use of the gate in the best interest of the child's abilities and safety?
Ie. Some of my kids at that age could easily climb out of bed and over the gate and navigate stairs with skill, so the gate would be more of a danger to them.
Some of them required a gate for safety reasons until an older age.
Assess the child's needs and proceed from there together as a team
posted by OnefortheLast at 1:50 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Our bedrooms are upstairs (pretty steep stairs, it's an old house), and we gated the top of the stairs until kiddo was about 5. We actually kept the gate attached to the wall for a while after ceasing regular use and gated the stairs when we had a friend's kid the same age sleeping over, figuring the stairs were unfamiliar to the other kid and we didn't want to take a chance; now that they're 7 we finally took the gate off the wall.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 3:14 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

My neice is 3 and spends three days a week over at my house. Somewhere around 2 1/2 years of age, the baby gates went away completely. She can handle stairs just fine now. Kids differ, though.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:12 PM on May 18, 2018

Bit different as mine has severe autism but we have a gate on his doorway and a gate at the top of the stairs. We have large dogs too and a gate at the bottom of the stairs. The various combinations of which keep everyome contained/safe through our days and nights. When he was smaller we put the gate on his door to prevent him wandering and hurting himself in the night. Now one of the dogs wakes me if he gets up and I don't wake myself, so the gate on his door is usually left unlatched but the gate at the top of the stairs is always closed when he is in bed.

Typical cats can step through or jump over standard height baby gates with extreme ease.
posted by intergalacticvelvet at 3:33 AM on May 19, 2018