Let me in!
Ah, the age old question. I have been thinking about this ever since my little one started crawling back around 5 months old. To baby gate or not to baby gate?
My friends and family all have very strong opinions and very good advice when it comes to this question. There are pretty much two schools of thought on the subject…
1. Gates are great because they prevent falls and keep baby out of non-baby-proofed areas.
2. Gates are not necessary because you should be watching your children and teaching them where the boundaries are.
Now that I have an 11 month old who can pretty much run around the house like a toddler, I have found that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Yes, I am always around my daughter and do my best to watch her every second of the day, but when I am making her lunch and she is playing on the kitchen floor, I need to know that she is not going to tumble down the basement stairs. This is the only area we have chosen to “gate off” out of necessity. Daddy works downstairs and she wants more than anything to go down and see him. She really does not care that she does not know how to step down stairs, she will just start going if we let her.
Then there is the staircase going upstairs. I have turned away for a second during a game of “peek-a-boo” and have opened my eyes to find my little Monkey halfway up the stairs! We have not gated that staircase and hopefully we won’t have to, but I do end up chasing her up the stairs at least 20 times a day. I wonder if we should have put a gate at the bottom. Some experts say you should have a gate at the third step from the bottom, so baby can learn by trial and error how to go up and down the steps.
I have some friends who have gated off almost every room of their houses, putting child locks on every single cabinet and drawer in the house. But what happens when those children are taken to another house? Will they listen when their parents say “no”? Since we have made the decision not to use gates and child locks (for the most part) I am sure that it was the right thing to do. It has been very annoying to have to teach her over and over AND OVER again not to open the cabinets, but now she stops at the word, “no” and when we visit other houses that are not babyproofed, she listens to the boundaries as we set them.
So what do you think about baby gates? Love ‘em or leave ‘em?
Related Posts:
- Babyproofing
- Baby’s First Christmas
- Reading with Baby
- Baby is Teething. Mommy is tired and cranky.
- NO!
