Under 4 ?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Under 4 ?
11
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 6:57am

I have a question. For those who have or who have already passed this age. How long did you gate up parts of your house?

For example, I have part of our downstairs gated off. The kids have a play area about 400 sq ft. It includes our family room and what use to be our dining room. The kitchen and bathroom are excluded. This way, I can do my thing as needed and not worry about them.

Well, Austin just had a recent eval. The OT made mention in it that Austin needed to have full roam of his house as it is a safe environment for him to learn in so that he can try out new skills. I can see her point, but i'm not sure i'm ready to give them all that space. i do let them run about during the day, just not all day. and we go upstairs at times too to play. but austin does not seem to recognize the danger in stairs.

in a perfect world, i could watch them all day long. but i can't. and i don't feel they are ready for that much independence.

is the OT making these comments based on her experience with her own NT child? or am i holding back on this? the boys are 2.5 and 3.5. what do you do in your homes?

valerie

~Valerie

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 7:37am

Hi Valerie,

My DS is 4.5. We just have the fridge locked. That's where he gets into trouble, he goes looking for FOOD. He can easily scale a baby gate though, so I don't even bother.

I'm not sure what the OT means about trying out his skills around the house.... if you're not comfortable with giving him free access, then just let him try out skills with you around!

Plus, you have a 2.5 year old and that's a hard age. My 23 month old is into everything -- all the stools and chairs are on their sides!

HTH,
Cathy

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 9:38am
Mine had free roam by the time she could walk. By that time she could also open doors. We did not have stairs, but if we did, I would have continued to gate those for quite a while. She is NT, just, and was always very cautious. It depends on the child I guess, but OTOH, they can't learn unless they have a chance. It is always a balance, and not always so easy to figure out.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 10:33am

Keep it gated when you are doing things where you cannot be with them directly, open it up when you can.

Ok, no matter what you do you can not make stairs safe when you are not there. Same with a bathroom and mostly a kitchen. You can make them mostly safe but kids with ASD learn safety skills much later than kids without ASD. Babies without ASD are very little when you "babyproof" your kitchen and by the time they can bust open a baby safe latch or climb the counters they have learned not to for the most part. Sure sometimes they may not but it is much more frequent with ASD kids to learn those later.

I wish I could have kept babygates up until Dave was 3.5 but he was climbing out of his crib at 16 months and over gates at the same time. So I had to be very creative with locking things. And where we lived then had very short flights of stairs.

With Cait we had a door with a lock over our stairs from the top and a babygate on the bottom and we used them probably until she was 4-5 because otherwise she tumbled. I can't tell you how many times she fell down stairs even when I was right there. On her 4th birthday I think, we were standing by the patio stairs when she came running by and went head over heels never even stopping for them.

Then when Mike was 3.5 he thought it would be fun to try to ride a therapy ball down the stairs. Thankfully it was gated and I was there to redirect (and boy did he get mad at me for that).

My 2 cents.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 10:39am

I want to agree with one other poster that says it depends on the child. At 3.5, Cait couldn't operate a door handle yet or climb a baby gate so it wasn't an issue. At 2.5-3, Mike didn't climb gates either and I still had my stairs and front room gated off. And the door shut to the bathroom. The kitchen was the center of the house so I couldn't lock that but, they didn't climb the cabinets anyway so I just moved all the dangerous stuff up.

Dave on the other hand climbed and got into everything and broke open regular baby latches before 2. Homedepot and lock boxes where my friend.

I know parents with ASD kids who have to put fancy locks on thier doors so the child doesn't run away. Sometimes you just have to be safer with ASD kids.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2001
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 10:42am

I don't gate Bobby(3.5) out of any part of the house(its a 2 story house).

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2005
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 11:25am

Hi Valerie,

I think you just have to go with your own gut and your children's individual challenges. I pretty much agree with what everyone said.

Eric is 3.5 and much like Renee's Dave. He was very mobile early on and baby gates quickly could not contain him. He is proficient at stairs, so I don't worry about him falling down them. What I DO worry about is his running out doors, climbing out windows, exploring in cabinets. As I have posted here before, he is our tiny Houdini! So everything is still baby proofed with latches, locks etc. Our doors and windows are also all alarmed so go off when they open. As Renee said, Home Depot is our friend! He still have probems with fine motor skills so he can't get anything that is baby proofed open yet.

I have those baby proof knob covers on the inside of his bedroom door, which I close at night, because I don't think we could trust him if he woke up and started roaming. I still use a baby monitor too.

I am SAHM and I do let him roam a bit, but I always have the baby monitor on when he is in his room and I am downstairs. I tend to close off rooms of the house I don't want him in without me (which have the door knob baby proof device.) And that works kind of like a gate. Mostly I just try to keep him where I am, and he usually wants to be near me so it works ok.

It's a problem though. But whatever the OT said, I think safety first, even if it seems we are being over protective!

Katherine

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 11:47am

Ditto everything Katherine said:

You're their Mom, you know them best and you should follow your gut. When walking the line between what you "should" do, and what s safe to do: safety should always out,IMO. An autie in a cast is not a happy camper (nor is his mom!)

I still have gates on my stairs! OK now they are mostly used to keep the dog from going upstairs, but the baby monitors... can't blame Tyrone on those. Both kids still have baby monitors in their rooms (Peter will be 8 in July).

I think my kids were relativly young when I started leaving the gates open. Peter has excellent balance, and Siobhan is quite careful. She did have a couple of spectacular falls, both on the stairs and wearing socks on hardwood floors. She was never seriously hurt, TG.

HTH

-Paula

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 1:05pm

I have a friend who had a gate with a lock and a bell on it to the kitchen for her 8yo BP son because he would go into the kitchen in the middle of the night and look for knives. She also had all knives in cabinets with keyed locks. The lock and bell was always engaged and he wasn't allowed in the kitchen unless she was there.

Safety does have to win out. I think that most of what I read is that there are certain places you just don't allow a small child unless you are there to supervise and there are some times you just can't be right there like when you are in the bathroom or cooking. At those times I think it is ok to block them off from places like the bathrooms and stairs.

But when you are there that is when it is good to let them explore the stairs.

When they were first learning stairs I used to put the baby gate up a few stairs so they could test out thier new skills but not so far that they could take a big tumble. 3-4 stairs or so. And I put a carpet on the bottom.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 3:03pm

Sylvia turns 4 years old in two days. We have child safety knobs on the linen closet door (where we keep our medicine and other things I don't want either child to get into) and on the door to the garage. But the rest of the house is open. The thing is, Sylvia has always been a VERY cautious child. She didn't even attempt to climb the stairs until she was nearly 2 years old, and even when she learned, she went up and down VERY slowly and carefully. And even now that the basement is finished and child-safe, she refuses to go down there! (I assume because it was off limits for so long.) Just goes to show how different each child is. If she was the kind of child who liked to go into the kitchen and open drawers and cabinets while I was using the bathroom, I have to say that I'd probably gate off the kitchen just to be safe. And I still do have baby monitors upstairs and down, so when I'm in the kitchen and the kids are upstairs I can hear what's going on. I'm certainly not ready to give those up any time soon.

You know what's reasonable for YOU and for your children. And, as I think Renee said, it's always possible to ungate the rooms at specific times, when you are there to supervise, and keep them gated the rest of the time -- at least until you feel you can really trust the kids to be safe.

Jennifer

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2004
In reply to: vcjacobs
Sat, 12-24-2005 - 5:24pm

Hi Val!

I agree with everyone else's response. I lived on a one level rambler, so I didn't have this issue when they were younger. But it really depends on the child, AS or NT. If you're busy doing something, I would keep the gate up too. I'd ease them into it. See how well they manage the stairs without your help. Go up and down the stairs "with" them...just don't "help" them. You'll know when it's safe to stop using the gate.

And your boys are still young....I'm surprised the OT made that kind of comment. Kids can explore and learn to be independent on one level as well.

michelle.....Merry Christmas!

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