When did you allow your toddler to roam free?

Question

My son is a year and a half. He's getting tall enough where the baby gate will soon be ineffective. Frankly, I'm getting tired of climbing over it---all the time. It seperates our house from our 'living areas' and our bedrooms. It's pretty much a pain. Haha. So, I was wondering when you allowed your child to roam free? How did you manage? Is it better just to leave the gate up until way later?

I'm thinking about getting a gate that has a door build in so I can open it when I need to get through. I can't even tell you how many times I've triped and fell over the darn thing while carrying laundry. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

The issue with our house is that it's very long. I can be in the kitchen and I can't hear what's going on in the bedrooms. So, if he were to let's get on our bed and fall off I wouldn't be able to hear or he could be throwing everything out of his dresser drawers and I'd never know. That's why I have the gate up.

I would like to figure out a way where I don't need the baby gate but I can teach him to stay out of those rooms. [without closing the doors because we have animals...]

Maybe I'm just asking for too much. I'm just sick of that gate. Can you tell I just tripped over it? That's what sparked the question!

Oh, and the house is pretty much baby proofed. Chemicals are up high, we have no cords laying around. The only thing we don't baby proof are the cupboards, drawers, etc... I feel strongly that if it's not a safety hazard it shouldn't be baby-proofed. He should learn not to touch which he has but I worry what he'll try to get by with if I'm not close by.

Answer 1

I have two girls, 3.5 and 22MO and am pregnant with #3. When we moved into our house a year ago, we only put a baby gate on our office. It's full of computer equipment they shouldn't touch, and the cat needs one room to get away from the kids. They pretty much have free reign over the rest of the house...BUT...I have taken precautions. Aside from standard babyproofing, there are baby monitors in the two back bedrooms that I can't hear from the front of the house, so I always know what is going on. Our master bedroom door is loud, so I can hear them if they try to go in there, and the master bathroom is always locked. Our dining room chairs are loud against the floor, so I can hear if they climb on the dining table. I have a doorknob cover on the inside of the door of the room they sleep in, so they can't get out at night when we are asleep. I have upper latches they can't reach on all exterior doors and locks on all the windows, so they can't get out of the house without me. I only have baby latches on the cabinets that have pipes or wiring in them, so they can get into all the other lower cabinets which have items like pots and pans that are ok for them to play with. I don't have a lot of knicknacks or things that could be a potential problem.

The big bonus is when we have playdates, I don't have to worry about other people's kids either. There's nothing they can get into. It's easy to keep clean and looks great. I've had lots of parents comment how they love our house, how it's totally kid safe without baby gates and padding and such yet still stylish.

Answer 2

I have never had gates unless we had other people's children over. I just figured my children should be able to learn to stay in the room I put them in. They all have, and the trick is that they stay in the room I am in. The only time a toddler goes into another room is if I am in the shower or asleep and I have the olders watching him. We never shut doors and we've never had a problem. My current 16 month old stops at the front door, at the top of the stairs, and stays in the play area of the living room like he is supposed to. He is also blanket trained so I can sit him on a blanket at other's homes and he will play quietly there. This makes life so much simpler than trying to gate off the whole house. How in the world would my older ones go to the bathroom (they are too short to go over the gate) if I had them all gated in the living room to play? I would constantly be going back and forth. I would not do that.

Answer 3

I personally wouldn't allow him to "free roam" at that age. However I would invest in a gate that installs into the wall that has vertical bars and a gate say at the front of the hall so you can get through easily but he won't be able to climb it! LOL We installed a similar gate that had expandible lengths so we could keep our son out of the kitchen. Total life saver especially since he's getting to the age where he knows how to shove things around and pull out drawers to climb. And in our experience the drawer locks did not work for more then 5 minutes! The other thing is to constantly tell him NO whenever he decides to attempt to climb the gates.
Fair warning it wasn't much older then your little imp is that my son figured out how to unlock and open doors. flip latches and/or lock chains are a life saver for these little adventurous imps. We were going to take the fence down soon (he's nearly 4) since he knows how to open the gate now but it works to keep the dog away from the cat and also we have a baby coming next month...Seemed kinda silly to take it down for only 6 months.

Answer 4

My daughter recently turned 3, and that's when I finally took the baby gate down. We just live in a small apt, but like you said, you won't know what they are up to at the other end of your house or even apt, so it was a lot safer to keep it up. Our gate was in the living room doorway, so she could only be in there or the kitchen, and it was easy to keep an eye on her. All her toys are in the living room so she didn't need to go in her bedroom except for naps and bedtime. I kept our gate there cuz on the other side of it is our bedrooms, bathroom, and a long set of stairs (our apt is upstairs in a house), and the hallway and stairs are open except for the railing in between. Obviously I always worried about the stairs and her getting into things in the other rooms without me knowing. I took the gate down cuz she's getting old enough where she wants to follow me to help me if I go do laundry downstairs or go change the sheets on our beds. So it just was easier to take it down cuz she was coming out there anyway, and she's old enough now to behave and I am comfortable with her around stairs now that she has more experience with them (well, as comfortable as you can be as a mom anyway, right?!). Plus, she started potty training and obviously she couldn't run to the bathroom if she needed to with a gate blocking her way. So it just kinda all worked out and now we are gate-free! (Also, luckily she never tried to crawl over it, so I was able to leave it up as long as I was.)

So yeah, sorry to ramble. I guess it's just a matter of safety for your child, first of all, and also what you feel comfortable with. You could always try taking the gate down, and if he doesn't behave and you can't trust him, put it back up and he'll know he did something wrong and that it's not acceptable.

Answer 5

Take it down! It's a tripping hazard to you, and once your child is tall enough/strong enough to climb they can climb over the top and land on their head! We have never had a single baby gate in our house (our son is 3.5 years old) and never will (I am 17 weeks pregnant with our 2nd baby).

What we did was babyproof the whole house (obviously) and then buy new indoor doorknobs for the bathrooms and just put them in backwards so the little lock is on the outside-our son can open doors but he still hasn't figured out how to UNLOCK them. We can all go wherever we need to go without tripping and falling, but the rooms that are unsafe are locked so our son can't get in. The only rooms this will leave open are rooms without doors like your kitchen/living room/dining room. This limits the places you have to keep the eagle eye on, and actually gives you a good opportunity not only to let him explore but also to teach him invisble boundaries such as "you're not allowed in the kitchen" or [my favorite] "stay next to mommy" which come in VERY handy when they become independant enough to walk next to you but still small enough to have to be with you at all times!

Don't worry! Baby gates are mostly for the parent's peace of mind, and if you are done with them your son won't miss them either!

Answer 6

We've lived in big houses, small houses, single level and two storey and have never used gates. The kids were allowed in all the rooms (within reason of course, normally I closed the toilet, bathroom and laundry doors for obvious safety reasons (is drowning or poisoning) and we taught them how to go up and down stairs from when they started walking.

I think you'll be fighting an uphill battle to teach an 18 month old to stay out of a room with an open door - you might as well put a gate up!

So, to answer the question, from the day they could walk they had free licence to go about the house. Depends entirely on what you have in your rooms and how you feel about letting them play for periods of time out of your line of sight.

Answer 7

Our son is 3 and we still use gates. I have a old wooden one blocking off the living room because my exercise equipment and my computer are in here and we have a step going down to the den and we have one of those extended gates that you just lift and slide over to get through. I am planning on replacing the gates for the living room with bi-fold doors eventually that has a hook and eye latch at the top.

Answer 8

Well I had four of them and at various times I had gates,playpens and all sorts and all rigged up by my Father from various bits and pieces never bought.
Although when they got older having little room in the house was a problem when they were little it was good as I could contain them easily!
It certainly is better to be safe than sorry over these matters - even if it costs you a trip or two! - and anyway whatever safeguards you have the old wisdom of making sure that medicines/cleaning products are well out of reach or locked up is still needed.I think I gave birth to four Houdinis the way they escaped from pens and so on at times so at least by having locks on the kitchen cupboards I had some peace of mind.

Answer 9

I finally took down the "pen" about a month ago, our son was 16 months. We basically had our living area caged in as his "playpen". Like you, I grew tired of looking at the bruises on my legs from climbing over the stupid thing! Plus I'm 8½ mos. pregnant and it's not getting any easier!

To keep him safe we installed:
*Safety latches on all the kitchen cabinets and drawers
*Lock for the oven door
*Doorknob covers on all the doors to bedrooms and bathroom and keep them closed
*A gate to our office door that swings open for easy access fof us.
*Electrical outlet covers

Put away all breakables, small items, tie up electrical cords, blind cords, etc. You definately have to view things from their perspective to make sure you've covered all the bases. I thought it would be a huge pain but it is so much easier for all of us and he enjoys the extra freedom!

Check out the safety gear at www.onestepahead.com. I bought most of my safety stuff at Baby Depot, but they have a great selection to look at that can help you decide what you need.

Good luck!

Answer 10

As long as you have your house baby-proofed (outlets, cupboards, cords, etc.) you should be totally safe letting him roam at a year and a half old. We took down our baby gates at about 1 year old because our daughter had learned to use the stairs (on her bottom going down and crawling up) very competently and she had started climbing the gate--which was far more dangerous than not having it there at all.

As a hint: when you're baby-proofing, get down and crawl around on your hands an knees to see things from your child's view and to see potential dangers that you may not be aware of from adult height :)