2 kids over 4 yrs old...

would u let them play upstairs together while u stay downstairs?

i'm babysitting my 4-yr-old niece while her twin goes to hosp.

her and millie have gone off playing upstairs but dex down here i'm with him...

i wouldnt leave my 2 up there coz dex is very little but it feels like i can trust them 2 4yo's?

i'm not being irresponsible am i??? iv got the baby monitor on (its in dex's room but can still hear their muffled voices)

Yeah sure, whats the worst they can do? get into your make up find your condoms, i cant imagine you have anything dangerous upstairs.

I recently started letting Maia play in her room when a friend comes to play. Makes an awful mess but I know there is nothing particularly dangerous up there.
Just check occasionally as I know someone whose kid managed to find a marker pen and draw all over her furniture!

Yep I'd let two 4 year old's play upstairs together Nothing wrong with that. I'm sure if anything was up or one did something wrong the other would be straight down to tell tales...!

I have let my pair play uostairs, in the garden etc unsupervised for ages. Since Cally was over 1 and a half

my girls are 3 and 4 and play upstairs unsupervised every day.

My house is tiny so really they are only a matter of feet away. Plus their room is as safe as a bedroom can be.

TBH they've played up/downstairs occasionally unsupervised since they were able to walk/climb stairs.

oh gosh lol maybe i babify dexter too much then! i still kinda follow him everywhere but our house is kinda big its far away upstairs i cant hear anything without monitor on, and there are a lot of stairs and very steep! and millie's bed is a mid-sleeper dex can climb the ladders but i worry about him falling out :/

they've come down now, theyre all drawing pictures and eating grapes and biscuits lol

yes I would. Jason (23 months) has been taking himself off upstairs to play with toys (sometimes with Lydia [5 yrs 11 months] and Alex [4 yrs 2 weeks] but sometimes on his own) for months now. Since about 18 months old I'd say - when he mastered going up and down stairs.

edited to add : I make sure my bedroom door is shut though, and Lydia and Alex know to close the bathroom door behind them, so Jay can't get in there. The three of them have free roam of all the downstairs though, and back garden (we often leave the sliding door to the back garden open so they can get in and out at will) and both the kids bedrooms upstairs.
Lydia and Alex are allowed in and out of the front door at will as well. (Jay isn't though).

Maisie has free run of this house too apart from the 2 bathrooms. I can hear her most of the time and know she is fine playing

Yeay theyll be fine.. I remember a time when i was 4/5 and me and my friend Lewis were playing in my room, and we had jam sandwiches and they went al over the carpet... That was the worse that happened lol xxx

trixipaws wrote:oh gosh lol maybe i babify dexter too much then! i still kinda follow him everywhere but our house is kinda big its far away upstairs i cant hear anything without monitor on, and there are a lot of stairs and very steep! and millie's bed is a mid-sleeper dex can climb the ladders but i worry about him falling out :/

they've come down now, theyre all drawing pictures and eating grapes and biscuits lol

the kids have bunk beds and Theo can climb the stairs up to the top one, suprisingly he's only fallen once and he didn't even cry. We're in a flat so it's quite different but i let them roam the flat. They quite like playing in their room

Jessica has had free access since she was potty trained (20 months) as she initially wouldn't tell me she needed to the toilet but would take herself off and tell me when she was finished.

She plays lovely little games - which I have been told I am not allowed to join in - so I use it to my advantage and get on with things. She soon comes and finds me if she wants anything!

does dex need more free reign then???

the other thing is, at the very top of the steep, 16-step staircase is the bathroom door and it pushes open into the bathroom, but there are several steps going down into it, and the floor is marble tiles REALLY hard if u fell on them

do i worry too much?! should i just trust him to be ok lol

Just do what you're happy with!

All our houses are different and so are our kids, if you aren't comfortable letting Dexter go upstairs alone for now, then don't

Trust your instincts, if you feel he needs a more watchful eye then do so. Jessica has - touch wood - never fallen down the stairs and I've never had a stair gate so she has been up and down on her own since about 9 months old. I however have fallen down the stairs countless times.

You'll get to a point where you feel confident to take your eyes off him a bit more as you did with Millie, but it needs to be the right time for you and Dex.

beanie wrote:I have let my pair play uostairs, in the garden etc unsupervised for ages. Since Cally was over 1 and a half

Same.

trixipaws wrote:does dex need more free reign then???

the other thing is, at the very top of the steep, 16-step staircase is the bathroom door and it pushes open into the bathroom, but there are several steps going down into it, and the floor is marble tiles REALLY hard if u fell on them

do i worry too much?! should i just trust him to be ok lol

any way you could shut the door so that he couldn't open it?

We keep the bathroom door locked (you can open the lock from both sides). Though Jason CAN open the lock from the outside he doesn't usually bother as it's a bit of effort for him. There's nothing dangerous in our bathroom that he could get to, but knowing him he'd probably block the loo by throwing toys in it or something!