Do you leave room doors open?

[SilentRain]

I'm curious if any of you leave room door's open, and around what age you would consider it safe to leave them open? It's a silly question, I know...

[happysmileylady]

Well, it wouldn't matter with my toddler, she learned how to open doors within a few weeks of being tall enough to reach the knobs.

We close her bedroom door when we put her to bed, mostly so that in the morning, we know when she comes out.

[crunchy_mommy]

It depends on my mood. Sometimes I just want to know DS is within eyesight/earshot so I keep the doors closed. Other times, I have more energy to check on him frequently, or DH & I are both home in different rooms or whatever, so we leave the doors open. I never really thought of it as 'dangerous' to leave them open, more just inconvenient... We do keep the second floor gated off (because it's under construction & I'd rather not have DS playing with a hacksaw or falling through the floorboards when I turn my back... ) It probably depends on the layout of your house as well... my main floor is small & only has bedroom-living room-kitchen-bathroom all off of the dining room/entry so I can see/hear him most of the time whether the doors are open or closed. I would think if I had hallways with various rooms off them, I might want to close some of them off just so I'd always know which rooms he could possibly be in...

[MittensKittens]

I leave doors open because my son is not tall enough to do it without getting on a step. We live in a small apartment, and I see his mobility as a positive thing. The front door stays locked at all times, however.

[tzs]

they're open but really the only doors we could shut are the bedrooms on the 2nd floor and she can go in and out of there as much as she wants. those rooms are actually the best places for her to be as far as entertaining herself without making huge messes so unfortunately she's rarely in them. i am a big proponant of not locking things up and rather being really vigilant and consistant about teaching limits (although i realize with some kids and some situations that's more difficult than i have it) however, i have taken to closing the upstairs bathroom door because playing in the toilet has progressed to drinking from the toilet and i don't always have the energy to keep running up and down the stairs 7 months preggos.

[CookAMH]

We haven't opened or closed doors on account of a toddler. Doors that are normally closed are closed (ie linen closet, coat closet, etc). Doors that are normally open are open (bathroom, bedrooms).

[bluebackpacks]

Totally not a silly question!  Here, some doors stay open and some are closed.  

[snoopy5386]

We live in an old house and none of the doors close without slamming them shut due to sagging, so all of our doors are always open.

[treeoflife3]

no doors closed here unless kiddo is getting into something (like spilling water all over my bathroom because she figured out how to reach the faucet and fill her potty with water... ) but the spare room IS gated off.  The litter box is in there so the door can't be closed but kitty can still get around the gate.

[just_lily]

Now that DD is 2.5yo most doors are open.  We do close them all whenever we go out because of the dogs (they love bathroom garbage more than anything - bleurg!!) so sometimes they are still closed after we get home.  DD is still a bit too short to open most of the knobs, but happily drags a stool around with her break in anywhere she wants to go.

When she was younger, we closed off as much as we could just for sanity purposes.  My house is well childproofed (used to run a home daycare) so there wasn't a lot of danger, but having to clean up all of my tupperware, or re-roll a roll of toilet paper, or put all of my underwear back in the drawer 100 times a day isn't my idea of a good time. 

When I had my daycare this place was like Fort Knox.  Bedroom doors kept closed, bathroom doors closed with childproof things on the doorknobs (a licensing regulation) and I kept my kitchen babygated.  Again this was mainly for sanity -I didn't want a pack of preschoolers roaming all over my house.

[Peony]

Originally Posted by CookAMH 

We haven't opened or closed doors on account of a toddler. Doors that are normally closed are closed (ie linen closet, coat closet, etc). Doors that are normally open are open (bathroom, bedrooms).

Same for our house. 

[sunnygir1]

I started closing the bathroom door when ds became very fond of splashing in the toilet water and playing with the toilet paper and putting his toothbrush in the diaper pail.  It's just easier to me than having the tp up where he (and consequently my 4yo who needs it) can't reach it, etc.

I sometimes close the bedroom doors just because he is constantly turning on the humidifiers and playing with dd's cd player (which is resulting in seriously scratched cds).  They are often open, though.

I have a baby gate up in front of my closed laundry room door because it is very cramped and half-way remodeled, so there is currently yucky stuff on low shelves.  I don't like tripping over ds while I'm trying to do laundry.

Apart from the laundry room, none of it is for safety, though.  Ds is 18 months, and I am not concerned about him getting hurt in any of the rooms in our house.  There is always an adult around to keep an eye/ear on him, and there's not much he can get into that's truly dangerous.

[tabrizia]

Depends on the door.  Since I have a 4 year old that can open any door except the one that we lock it doesn't really matter.  That being said, I try to keep bathroom doors closed since my 2 year old enjoys unrolling toilet paper and flushing the whole roll in the toilet.  Other then that I tend to leave doors open, since she is too short to reach the door knob and open the door if she needs too.

[beebalmmama]

For me it depends on the layout of the house. Our house when ds 1 was a toddler was a 1 story and basement (but basement was closed off). I left his door open so he could come out when he woke up. He slept on a mattress on the floor from the time he was crawling. We kept our house pretty child proofed though so there isn't much he could get into, except for the month or two he was enamored (sp?) with the toilet.

In the house we are currently in I shut the bedroom door for ds 2. We're in a two story with all bedrooms upstairs. We have a baby gate at the top of the stairs but I still have visions of forgetting to shut it. So I just shut the bedroom door. He sleeps in PnP for naps though and couldn't get out, but he sleeps in our bed at night so I usually shut it in the morning after I leave the room.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

I live in a ranch-style bungalow. The living areas are open concept, so no doors to close. I do close the door to the mudroom while DS is crawling because the cat litter gets tracked around in there. And I close the hallway door so that DS can't get down the hall to the bathroom/bedrooms. He's currently hell-bent on killing himself, and rather than closing the door to DD's room and the bathroom and the main bedroom where our antique telescope is, it's easier to close the door (we have lever handles and he can almost reach them so this security is short-lived!).

[Nicole730]

We've left them open since DS started sleeping in a bed.  So around 27 months.  Sometimes he asks to have it closed, but usually not.  Our house is a tiny ranch and there's not many places for him to go...not to mention he's been opening doorknobs for a long time now.

[Greenlea]

I keep our upstairs BR door closed and the upstairs bathroom door closed.  I keep my son's BR door open, even while he's sleeping.  Basically we live on a 2 floor townhouse.  My almost 2 yr old son is allowed to go play in his room upstairs, so I close our door and the bathroom door so he can't get into anything in there.  He can't open the doors yet. 

[MegEliz]

Originally Posted by CookAMH 

We haven't opened or closed doors on account of a toddler. Doors that are normally closed are closed (ie linen closet, coat closet, etc). Doors that are normally open are open (bathroom, bedrooms).

This is our house as well. we used to keep our daughters bedroom door closed at night but now she likes it open. She def doesn't sleep as well but she is entering into the "i am afraid of the dark " stage

[kriket]

we have a small house (900SQFT) but I usually keep the doors open. It seems like every time I close a door, the cat is in that room, and of course she waits until someone is asleep, or I am covered in something gross to claw at the carpet that she wants out...

So the cat dictates door situation!

Unless it's really cold. Our bedroom, and the "kids room" get really cold for no reason, so we keep them closed to save heat.

[Baby_Cakes]

Originally Posted by CookAMH 

We haven't opened or closed doors on account of a toddler. Doors that are normally closed are closed (ie linen closet, coat closet, etc). Doors that are normally open are open (bathroom, bedrooms).

Same for us!