When did your baby learn to crawl *down* the stairs?

[LiLStar]

I am both horrified and amazed. ds is 7.5 months, and this past Sunday was the first time he ever climbed up stairs. He was amused by them at church. At home he did it once more yesterday. Thats his stair experience.

Just now I thought dh had him. He had actually set him down by me and was thinking the door was closed so he couldn't leave the room. Then I heard his babbling coming from down the hall, but could not see him. Which meant.. he went around the corner. STAIRS are around the corner, stairs going down. I sprint after him expecting to find him teetering on the edge about to fall. He was 4 steps down. And from the looks of it had been crawling down feet first too. We never taught him this. I don't know which emotion is stronger, the terror of the potentially serious injury that he probably would have received, or amazement that he had the good sense to go down backwards.

We need a new gate. We got one of the ones that screws in and its junk there because where there's a stud, the gate doesn't fit because of the stupid hand rail, and where it fits properly, there's no stud so it can't screw in securely. When it is up (and it just happens that just now it wasn't) its pretty precarious and I think the weight of him pulling up on it could cause it to come out from the wall. And dh actually had the nerve to scoff at my suggestion of getting a new one, "but, we spent like $35 on that one!" umm, so? And an ER copay is $100... admission is $250. Do the friggin math We need a pressure mounted one.

[MamaPhD]

You can screw into the drywall (without stud behind it) using a plastic insert. It's very secure and cheap (like 10 cents), ask your hardware store. I can't remember what it is called exactly but it's a plastic screw. You put in your metal screw into it and it opens up to grab the drywall. This is a more secure option than pressure mounted gate. You should always screw in gates at the top of the stairs.

[LiLStar]

Oh... thanks! I'll get dh right on that. I think we might actually have some of those

[marrymeflyfree]

I don't remember exactly at what age older daughter started going down the stairs, but it was very early...not long after she'd figured out crawling. There's a step down into our living room, so she had a lot of practice on that and of course it wasn't long til she tackled the big stairs! We never used a gate since she was always within sight due to the way our house is laid out, and we would just be there with her if she wanted to go up or down. I may rethink that when our new baby gets to that stage though - not sure I can count on always being there with a toddler also running around!

[lifeguard]

The pressure mounted ones say not to use them at the top of stairs. Ime they will fail if too much force is put against them.

[mamadelbosque]

Yeah, you need to figure out how to get your wall-mounted gate up properly... pressure mounted gates are *NOT* safe at the top of stairs - too much risk of them coming out and baby tumbling down them.

As for when DS1 learned to crawl downstairs? Never. Our stairs are NOT in any way, shape, or form kid-safe. Their wood, w/ wood floors at the bottom, super steep & short (ie each 'step' is higher than it is wide - like 10" high by 8" wide or something). DS1 started being allowed to climb up and down them w/ parental guidance at like 2-2.5. he's nearly 3 now and pretty good at them, but we still have gates up on them so that he can't just climb up and down at will.

[a-sorta-fairytale]

Ds and DD both learned to crawl up and down way before they learned to crawl on the floor. By about 4 months they could go up pretty easily but down was harder. They would both go back down feet first on their belly.

We have never really had to worry about going down too much as we stay downstairs most the time. I kept a gate downstairs if i wasnt right on top of them. when we were upstairs we kept the door closed to the room we were in.

[JessieBird]

No gate at all is absolutely safer than one that is insecure.

Here's my experience - we have two sets of stairs in our house. One is the full upstairs/downstairs, split in the middle by a large landing. The other is three steps down into our sunken living room. These are very wide and would be difficult to gate. I worried about how on earth I'd gate them (while maintaing the esthetics of my decor of course!) for my entire pregnancy and DS's early months. Then I read a little blurb (a box inset into the text) in the Dr Sears Baby Book in which he says that there are two types of babies - those that are cautious of stairs and heights and those that are not. I don't know how black and white these categories are in reality but DS is definitely the former. It has always been clear that he is very aware of edges and he is not an acrobatic risk-taker. He practices new moves carefully and has never tried anything until he was physically able. So we stopped worrying about those stairs to the living room and just let him figure them out. I put a thick rug at the bottom and he fell a few times but it was never bad.

As for the stairs going to our second level, we gated those until he had mastered going down backwards off the bed and down the steps to the living room. We let him practice a LOT. Like constantly. It was his favourite activity for his entire 9th month I think! It gave me enormous peace of mind to know that he was good at stairs and that the risk of a tumble is very low.

Now he is an absolute pro. We supervise him 99% of the time that he is on the stairs but I only close the gates when I'm doing something distracting that could allow him to sneak away. Not so much because I'm worried about him on the stairs (I'm not) but because of the trouble he could get up to if he made it to an entirely different part of the house without me realizing it.

Anway, all that to say that it sounds like your DS is a stair pro too. Of course you have to reasonably mitigate all possible dangers but I would consider the fact that he is physically capable and smart enough to handle stairs so early a big relief and not a cause for concern.

[sapphire_chan]

I'm jealous. Lina never crawled downstairs. She was over a year before I could get her to get off the couch safely instead of just rolling off (stepping off after she was walking).

your son!