Only bothered in the first house and then only had gate across the doorway to the kitchen. Every other room had its own door.
For some reason we have not bothered in this house, probably due to every room having door as well. Thinking about it, probably more due to having clingy babies/toddlers, always had to have them in the same room as me otherwise they got too distressed.
We have a single storey home but if it were doible storey I would use it on the stairs. We do not have any locks on the cupboards nor do we restrict access to the kitchen. AT the moment supervising one child is ok, we do have to repeatedly tell her NOT to go into the cupboards etc and it can be frustrating butwe believe she needs to learn what not to do by being told rather than "keeping things locked" so to speak.
I say that now but we may reaccess once the baby comes.
We also have removed all the sharps from the drawers as well as poisons.
we have one between our main living area and the "adult" area - our bedroom, and the formal lounge/bar. there is a lot of glass up that end of the house, so it's done for safety. it became a very important thing for us when we moved in because there is no security door at the front door as well - so we keep it closed to keep her away from the front door unless we're there.
We don't have any gates but we do have a playpen that's set up surrounding our computer desk. We don't have enough rooms to have a separate study so the computer is in the living room. There are so many cords & things that I don't want destoyed or could be dangerous so I think it's justified. We have a single level house so we don't need to block off stairs. I have often thought about what I'd do if we did have stairs, & I would definately use a gate. While it's great the kids have freedom, they also need to be safe, & it's impossible to be watching them every second. It only takes a second for an accident to happen so better safe than sorry IMO.
In our old house I had gates at the top of the stairs, and a gate on a hallway downstairs. The downstairs gate together with some other doors restricted the girls to the kitchen, dining room and family room, although once DD1 could reach the doorhandles we needed a gate across the doors as well. I think in a two storey house they're pretty much required equipment, and the layout of your house decides how many you need.
Our house now is single storey and I don't think I'll have a need for gates this time around, but that will depend on how adventurous this baby turns out to be.
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