I teach my kids to always hold the rail in the stairs.

Not to freak you out but my child didn’t have a bad fall down the stairs until he was 4 and very proficient and safe on the stairs. He just had a freak slip and tumbled down a full flight. Just teach good skills now and hope for the best.

It sounds like your kid is good at stairs now. I got rid of the gates pretty early with both kids - DS is 18 months now and gates have been gone for at least 6 months. He's never fallen down the stairs, and I don't think my daughter did either. My stairs are only half flights though. I guess if you have a really long set of stairs, put a gate at the top. Or you can put a really thick rug/mat at the bottom.

For coming down the stairs, train them to sit down and turn around. Basically, the backward crawl down the stairs. This method is safer than holding the rail.

My DS is 2 1/2. We have gates at the top and bottom as our steps at every steep and backless (floating risers) with a bannister on one side with largely spaced spindles. It’s kind of a disaster set up. I still watch him go up and down in front going down or behind going up. I don’t think it’s an issue to remove the gates unless it’s becoming a safety problem like climbing them. Mine doesn’t so we still have them.

We got rid of the gates at about 2 years old. At that point they were climbing over the gates, so it seems like they were doing more harm than good.

It was also encouraging some really frightening behavior, like climbing up the stairs on the outside of the bannister. So, a good 12+ foot drop.

We have the top and bottom gated.

We just moved and 21mo DS has - within a month - gone from carefully grasping the rail to just stepping down the stairs. Going up he sometimes walks carefully and other times goes on all fours. I’m so in fear of him falling, even though I’m always just a few steps ahead or behind, depending on the direction of travel.

We’ve got a gate at the top for when we’re all upstairs. Do I need one at the bottom as well or is he going to be ok now that he seems to have figured out how to use them?