Before I even begin... you have to understand how dreadful this experience was, regardless of how it happened, the sound of hearing my baby falling down the stairs is something that haunts me every day.
My daughter was just over 11months old and brought her over to my mom's house to visit and she suddenly was fairly active in crawling. She hadn't really done it much, just scoot a few inches here and there but nothing like a few feet at a time. Within a few days she was standing up against anything and everything and crawling for about 5-10 feet at a time as well. It was bizarre to all of the sudden have so much movement.
Then one morning while she sat in the far corner of my office I ran downstairs to grab a breakfast bar for my toddler son and some cheerios for her. It was a quick trip and I wasn't worried at all about putting the gate up after all, she was the furthest away from the stairs as she could be and there was a barrage of toys my son had left out between her and the stairs.
As I made my way out of the kitchen to the stairs... I heard it. I heard the thumps and her screaming and I yelled "NOOOO!!!!" I ran to the stairs and found her 9 stairs down from the top where she started. I comforted her and she recovered rather fast. Upon inspection she had no bumps or bruises anywhere... how is this possible? As a mom you tend to think about worst case scenarios and what this type of situation could look like but she had absolutely nothing wrong with her. We even have a railing that she could have easily hit her head on but she didn't.
I still have no idea how she got to the stairs so fast but will never risk that happening ever again. The gate is right at the stair opening and there is no reason for it not to be up if she is on the second floor.
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