Open Door Policy?

[lizms]

Hi All

What are your thoughts on leaving the door open for toddlers?

[Ennypen]

At the moment - since its now dark here in the UK at 7pm when I put Will to bed, he settles much better if I leave his door half open so some light comes in and he knows we are around downstairs.

I tend to creep up and shut the door on him when he has gone to sleep so we don't disturb him and the dog doesn't go in for a visit.

I am not sure how possible this will be when he is in a bed and if he wanders.. might be tempted to put a baby gate on his doorway if necessary..

[Caroline-Charlies Mummy]

Can I just add a different angle to this?

I watched a programme on house fires, and they strongly recommended that all internal doors be kept shut at night. They did an experiment, setting a real house on fire. The rooms with the doors open were absolutely trashed (and obviously smoke fumes from downstairs got in really easily), but the ones with the doors shut, while damaged, were classed as 'survivable', ie the beds were still in tact.

Just a thought, although I know that's not exactly the question you were asking

[Samuel's mum]

Ermmm. I think it depends on a few things - like how safe is your home to wander around in and what's currently happening in your toddler's sleeping habits.
I'm about to move house (still waiting for final confirmation) and without my current situation of a bizarre curved flight on stairs with a stairwell three flights down (too freaky for Sam to do on his own so he has a gate on his bedroom door) I would like to have an open door policy. I just want him to feel that we're there in desperate  'monster -under - the -bed - what -was- that -noise - I -had -a -bad -dream -and- I -need -a -cuddle' times. If I felt he was getting out of bed a ludicrous amount I might want to discuss it though.


edited to add - eeek on the fires thing but I would prefer to close downstairs doors and have at least a smoke alarm on every floor (an 'optical' alarm as well as a bog-standard one). I'm hoping that we're out the house long before that's an issue.

[Maeve]

I never thought about fire, although I did know that, now that you  mention it , but a few weeks ago DS said to me, 'don't close the door', so I didn't. Now I don't know what to do

[imsmum]

DD has always slept with her door closed because she goes down fairly early to bed (7:30, asleep at but her sister who is 5 doesn't go to bed until .5 hour later, and the noise wakes her.  DD is also very distractible, so rather than wanting light in the room we have black out blinds etc. 

Her older sister always wanted her door open though and seemed comforted by the open door and the thought of being able to get mummy and daddy if she needed us, so she has always slept with her door part open. 

So (other than fire) if there are no other safety risks that can't be adequately dealt with and your lo sleeps ok with some light and household noise I think you can just go with whatever your lo seems to prefer.

[tylersmommy]

We've always closed Tyler's door to help with noise from downstairs. Now that he's in a bed, I'm glad we do...the thought of him wandering the house really freaks me out. He knows that if he calls for us (or bangs on the door  ) we'll always come. He hasn't figured out how to open doors yet, so I'm not sure what we'll do when that happens.

[pinkylee]

I keep my son's door closed because he is so hypersensitive to sound, that he will wake if he hears a floor creak.

Good luck!!!

I'm not sure how to handle that since he actually asked you to leave it open.

[Katet]

We have one with the door open, always has been & one who sleeps with the door shut, always has too... yes second child being "shaded" from noise & visits from big brother by the door shut. But not totally so actually so I can peak through the tiny crack
We have had no problems with wandering (live in a single story house though, so stairs not an issue)
I find it better for our 3yo to have the door open for "night time toilet visits"

The fire issue is one we dealt with by putting smoke alarms in both bedrooms & our own & living areas & as we aren't attached to anyother houses we feel comfortable with that.

[momof3girls]

We've had their door open since dd1 was about 18 mos.  All three are in the same room, and we close the door for dd3's naps, but we leave it open at night.  They like the light on, and any noises we make downstairs don't seem to bother them.  Our door is always closed at night.  We know about the fire risk, but we have smoke detectors in all the rooms and one in the hall, so we feel pretty safe.

[Erin (redstarfalling)]

We leave the door open a small amount - I like to be able to peek in and check on her without it creaking as it opens!  As for the fire thing - yes, closed doors keep the fire from spreading, but if a fire starts, we have smoke detectors, and the plan is to get the kid out, not leave them in there as the fire burns, so I don't see how that's an issue - we could alway close the door as we flee the house.  As for wandering around - we have a gate at the top of the stairs, and that would be the only risk.  Plus, for some reason, DD won't leave her bed once she's put in for the night - the very first night in her big bed, she walked out and we (firmly) told her to go back to bed, and she's never left on her own since!

I suppose if there was lots of noise in the house, we'd close the door, but I know I grew up sleeping with the door open and it was less scary than feeling closed in all alone in my room...