So Much for the Baby Gate

We live in a 4 story townhouse, there are stairs everywhere. Most of the stairs are carpeted, but the stairs going down from the 2nd floor (which is our main living area) are wooden. Its not that Sophie falling down carpeted stairs isn't bad, its just that if she falls down the wooden ones we will definitely being headed to the emergency room so we have tried to block them from the beginning.

We bought one of those almost attractive black iron (looking) gates that you bolt to the wall, but our stairs are a little funky and it didn't fit. In fact because we have a short wall on one side and tall base molding on both sides we have yet to find a "nice" gate to protect our sweetie from the mean old stairs.

So we used what we had.

I had bought a play yard for Sophie, so I would have a safe place to put her for those few moments when I had to do something without her (like let the dog out). Of course it didn't take long for her to figure out that she could move the whole thing across the room while inside it and it was no longer considered safe.

So we have been using the play yard as a baby gate for the stairs. At first it was highly effective, if not more then a little annoying for the adults, and when daddy would come home she would crawl to the gate and wait for him to come up the stairs. Eventually she figured out how to pull herself up on the gate and then she stood and danced till he appeared on the steps below.

But then she discovered that there were more stairs...stairs that went up and could be climbed!

So I reconfigured the play yard to cover both stairs and though even more annoying for BJ and I it appeared to fix our little dilemma.

Until now!

A few days ago I was in the kitchen (literally just putting her cup in the sink) and when I came around the corner she was on the second step! She had quietly moved the gate out of her way and thought she'd see how far she could get until she was busted. Of course the moment she notices me she lost her footing and I caught her before she tumbled down.

To be responsible (realizing that it only takes a moment for her to get to the stairs and I can't possibly watch her every single second) I decided to teach her to climb properly and then to get back down. Big Mistake!

Sophie loves to climb the stairs, she's really getting good at up, but she's so stubborn, she wants to see where she' going so she refuses to go down backward. No matter how many times she looses her footing trying to go forward she will not face the stairs and climb down! And of course right now her little legs are too short for me to teach her to do down on her butt! So really the only thing I've taught her is that (very unrealistically) mommy will always be there to catch me!

So for now the answer to 4 stories of stairs is to keep an eye on her. Well no one said motherhood was boring!