# Baby gates vs Freedom for 3 year old



## Zirconia (May 13, 2012)

DD is 3 years 4 months. Our house has a cathedral ceiling, with a catwalk connecting upstairs rooms. So, the catwalk is two stories high and open on both sides and over the staircase.

DD's room is upstairs, and we sleep upstairs in the bonus room right next to hers (Master is downstairs but no way I'm leaving her up there alone).

When she wakes up in the morning, she often just leaves her (or our) room and goes out onto the catwalk. She usually just stands there or lays on the floor, although I've caught her standing on the lowest rail of the stairway baby gate (not quite climbing, just clinging). She has also gone into our home office and messed around, which is dangerous with sewing stuff, scissors, pins, permanent markers, etc. Only once, she had let go of a helium balloon and it went into the vaulted ceiling, and I caught her trying to reach over the railing to get it - total mama heart attack! No more balloons.

The balcony is my Achilles' heel. It terrifies me, to the point that I regret buying the house. I literally startle awake at night having nightmares about her climbing or falling off it. It gives me vertigo and scares me to death. So I'm a little biased - that's why I'm posting here!

At almost 3.5, what would you do? Do I follow my fears and install a gate that denies her access to the balcony (but also denies her access to the bathroom without help)? Or do I leave it alone, and perhaps even open the stairway gate so she can go downstairs to her playroom in the mornings? She's great on the stairs.

It's a pivotal time - I don't want to limit her unnecessarily, but my fear is totally freaking me out.


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## Stu Long (May 15, 2015)

Hello Zirconia, 

I understand the frustration you experience. I have had the same feeling myself. I would go for the safety gate. It's better to be safe than sorry. You can get some pretty nice safety gates now a day that doesn't ruin the look of the room you place it in. They are pretty easy to sell when you are done with it as well.


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

I'm in the better safe than sorry camp. 
I'm a fairly mellow parent who is fine with kids learning from their mistakes, except for mistakes that kill or mane them. If she fell from that height and landed wrong.... it's really unthinkable. 


I vote for making sure she is safe, and making sure she has access to fun things to play with when she wakes up. 


If access to the bathroom is a big issue, you could put an "emergency" potty chair in her room.


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## salr (Apr 14, 2008)

This is kind of a long term solution but could you use steel wires or something else architecturally interesting to enclose the catwalk but keep the feeling of the house?

Is there an age where you will feel comfortable with her being there unsupervised? 

Those kinds of things freak me out even for adults, so that's my bias.


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## Zirconia (May 13, 2012)

Thanks mamas! I agree it's better to be safe than sorry, and I bought a gate yesterday just haven't installed it yet. There's a short hallway connecting her room and ours to the balcony, so I could block that off. I just don't want to insult my daughter's maturity, you know? If it were a single-level home, she could leave her room and go play in the kitchen knives or turn on the fireplace - at some point you have to trust them (and yourself) a little, I'm just not sure where that point is. I don't know what age I'll feel comfortable with her up there alone at night. 

Before I had kids, I saw a house-hunter type show set in Paris. The upper-floor condo had these incredible floor-to-ceiling windows. The American buyer asked, "But what about kids falling out?" and the realtor said, "Here in France, people teach their kids to be careful around open windows." At the time I thought she had made a brilliant statement about parenting. Now that I have kids, I think she's an idiot.


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## louisa0987 (Apr 29, 2015)

Definitely go for the safe solution. You don't need to constant worry about this, so just get the gates.


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## newmamalizzy (Jul 23, 2010)

That is a tough situation. It's so nice to be able to give a child freedom, but you so have to be prepared for the consequences of them (inevitably) messing up. I think you are making the right choice on the gate. We live in a very small, kind of cramped single level home, but it is SO easy to childproof. I guess that's the upside. Your home sounds lovely.


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## my3beasties (Feb 10, 2012)

I think these things are a matter of weighing your individual child's abilities against the safety concerns at hand. If she's 3.5, good with the stairs, and not prone to sleepwalking, it might be ok. But if she winds up walking out to sleep on the floor in the middle of the night (like my 4yo), reaching over the railing, or there are other scary things she could get into, I say gate it! 


I always err on the side of caution - we have a permanently mounted gate up at the top of our stairs, which has been there for the last 5 years, and will probably stay there until the new baby is at least 3.  


At a certain point they will learn to stay away from things that are unsafe, but a child that age is just too impulsive to really be trusted - even if they know intellectually that they shouldn't do something, those things can be so tempting they forget to put that knowledge to practical use!


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## TheBugsMomma (Mar 24, 2015)

Yup, I would go with the gate too. That sounds scary. We have bedrooms without doors that open to a stairway that freaks me out too. My dh permantly mounted a pretty gate and we keep a baby potty up there for emergencies.


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## quantumleap (Apr 13, 2006)

I would go for something that makes the catwalk "safe" instead of a gate. Higher railings, or the cables someone else mentioned, or something else. Surely there are people who deal with this sort of thing! She's way old enough to be able to get to the bathroom alone at night, or up in the morning to play with toys while you enjoy an extra few minutes of not-quite asleep in your bed. 
I don't know if you're planning to have more children or not, but this could be an issues that persists for a very, very long time! If even adults make you nervous in this part of your house, it sounds like it would be worth it to make it safer! 
Or, if the master bedroom is downstairs, could you just all move down there?


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## salr (Apr 14, 2008)

It was me that said adults would even freak me out on a catwalk, so I assume the OP isn't actually living in fear in general in her house.


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## here we are (Sep 17, 2012)

I am wondering if all of you who can trust your gates, can you tell me which gate you have and how you stopped your child from fussing with it? Mine is almost 2 & the gate seems wobbly and she studies it intensely. Are your gates installed vs pressure mounted? 
I wish someone would come fix up my gate but no handyman will because its a liability. Talking to myself. But its so good to hear from you all .


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## Zirconia (May 13, 2012)

salr said:


> It was me that said adults would even freak me out on a catwalk, so I assume the OP isn't actually living in fear in general in her house.


Oh no, I am! ? When we first looked at the house, I got vertigo up there and thought, "Oh, hell no." And I immediately saw that it wasn't going to work well with young kids.

Various circumstances prevailed (long story), and I ended up trying to convince myself it was no big deal. It turned out to be a really big deal. :/ We aren't in a position to move again so soon, but believe me I think about it every day! I still get vertigo every time I go up there.

A gate is definitely going up! I'm traveling this weekend and DH is home alone with DD for the first time, and he doesn't wake up unless she's crying. There will be a gate before I leave!


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## Zirconia (May 13, 2012)

Thanks so much, mamas! The gate is a life-saver! The first night, when DD realized she couldn't open it, she flung herself dramatically on her bed and cried, "What am I gonna DO?" But so far in the mornings, when she wakes up in our bed and decides to escape, she wanders back into her room and reads to herself. And I relax a few minutes knowing she's safe. Win-win!!


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## Zirconia (May 13, 2012)

Just wanted to follow up with a wonderful side-effect of installing a baby gate! So we put up a gate that restricts DD's nighttime access to the tiny hallway connecting her bedroom and ours.

Her normal routine was to wake up crying around 3am, and DH would go get her and bring her into bed with us. That was getting old, so with the gate in place, we started opening both bedroom doors when we turn out our lights at night, and we invited her to just get up and come into our room by herself. She knows how to open doors, but I guess waking up in a closed dark room was scary.

Lo and behold, she has started sleeping through the night! She does come into our room, but most mornings now it's after dawn. And nobody has to go get her, no tears, just a sweet cuddlebug crawling in for a snuggle.

Here I was worried that the gate would insult her maturity, and it has actually contributed to a situation where I know she's safe, and she has the freedom to act downright mature.


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