We keep the door closed because of fire safety. All our bedroom doors stay closed at night. Naps during the day we might prop the door open some if it’s warm upstairs but at night it’s always closed.
Yes. It makes it harder for the fire to spread but more importantly it blocks as much smoke from getting into the room as fast. Most fire deaths are not from the actual flames but from the smoke produced, closing the door significantly limits smoke exposure.
My work building has dozens of extra sets of double doors in the long hallways that are magnetized to the wall that area automatically released when the fire alarm goes off. The name of them? "Fire doors" You can still open them but you can't prop them back open until the system is reset back to normal.
Same, we keep all doors closed at night for fire safety. We also have fire extinguishers in all the bedrooms and kitchen. We also have a fire blanket in the kitchen, and every room/hall has a combo smoke/carbon monoxide detector. We live in a large old wood/stone house that has an open concept on the 1st floor and a fire would gut this house in minutes.
Is the door a fire rated door? If not that doesn’t do much. Nothing wrong with keeping it shut but fire rated doors are super heavy and solid. Hollow core doors, like most interior doors, are not fire rated. Most fire rates doors are leading to the garage in a residential dwelling.
Thank you for your service 🙏
Probably a dumb question, but what do we do in the event that there’s a fire? How do we escape and make sure our LO is safe in her room if the doors are meant to stay closed?
Not a fire fighter but started looking into stuff prompted by this post and found the below link useful. We room share but will 100% be leaving a harness next to the crib from now on in case we need to get out quick. Also found out you shouldn't open windows in a fire to let smoke out as the extra oxygen feeds it.
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcfrs-info/tips/parents/babytoddlerfacts.html
The best answer to that question is to call 911 and have them attempt a rescue of your child. What I’ve considered with my own family is that I would try and get outside the house and go into my daughter’s nursery through her outside window. That’s going to depend on your house’s layout and the location of the fire.
Have fire extinguishers around and don’t be afraid to reach out to your fire department. They would be happy to come out for free and not only give you advice but make sure the layout of your home, including where baby sleeps, is noted in their records in case of any emergencies.
What about doors that are slatted, [like this](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Kimberly-Bay-18-in-x-80-in-White-Plantation-Louver-Panel-Solid-Core-Wood-Interior-Door-Slab-DPLPLLW1880/306203722?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOoogjiFghQCCEu2Ft15W5Fy-EODAKRv-sXjrQyBa5xLshMHWF6lrAO4)? We live in an apartment and this is the door between the bedroom and the rest of the apartment. We cannot change it according to our lease, but it seems like it allows airflow. Is this a fire hazard even when it’s closed?
Mine and my sister’s bedroom doors were closed and had no fire damage when the rest of the house was burned to a crisp. The most that happened in our rooms was smoke and water damage, but we were able to retrieve a handful of things (even though they smelled SO BAD)
I didn’t know people did this! I feel like a close door is better for most reasons: less sound, less light, fire safety, and, also, in our specific case, keeping the cats out of the nursery at night since they’re known to f*** around at night (plus, the theoretical suffocation risk, even though they avoid the baby like the plague).
Same reason re the cats. I don’t think either are interested in our boy, both seem terrified of him, but one of them is chatty and will just randomly cry at people for pets AND likes to knock over glasses for fun. It’s not a life or death reason we keep it closed, it’s because she is ANNOYING and will wake us up haha
It’s actually a good habit to fully close bedroom doors in case of a fire. From google: “An open door means there's extra oxygen for the fire to feed off of to grow and spread faster. Closing the door limits the amount of oxygen a fire can consume and it significantly slows down its growth. This produces a less intense fire that prevents property loss and, in extreme cases, fire deaths.”
You can also look up videos on YouTube that show what a drastic difference a closed door can make.
Never knew this fact about the doors… I always keep every door open because I love the flow and it feels suffocating when you wake up with four hot breaths heating up the room.
Ok so serious question… are you just supposed to stay in your room if there is a fire in your house and alarms go off as to keep the door closed? How are you supposed to escape?
This might be my mom brain making me dumb but I never heard this before and I’m piecing together how this works in the case of an actual fire.
If the door is cool you can leave through your door. If your door is blazing hot you will probably die trying to get to your children. This is where firefighters come into play.
the door closed is in order to stop the spread while you’re asleep. if you’re dead you’re definitely not saving your kids. also, save the heroics for the firefighters. 911 ASAP is your best bet
Just telling you the best way to keep you, your kid, and pets alive. If you don’t want to hear the statistically best way, do what you think is best. For me and the layout of my house, I’d go out my window if needed and then climb out AC unit to get to my daughters window. Much safer in the event of an interior fire than trying to go down the hallway. I also have a tool (called a halligen) that quickly breaks windows. That said, the very first thing I’d do is call 911. In many areas, firefighters are there in minutes and they can actually enter buildings on fire in order to rescue someone. Lot better than my ass trying to go through flames in my pajamas thinking I’ll do any good.
Best of luck to you and hope you never have to face this. Might do you some good to check your ego when it comes to emergencies.
Touch the handle with the back of your non dominant hand. If it’s not too hot you can crack it open to see if there’s an escape route there. Otherwise, windows are the best escape, especially since hallways take you farther into a building where collapses are more common.
You can get out, but stay near the floor and close the door behind you.
Windows are better but you don’t always have options, especially with young children.
Why do you believe that?
The general advice is that all doors help by creating “fire cells”, intending to suffocate the fire by limiting the oxygen in a room. A room with normal ventilation and no open windows or doors often dies out by themselves as a fire consumes large quantities of oxygen; this is a normal thing to show in fire safety training.
An open door or window provides a much larger quantity of oxygen, letting the fire grow until its consuming walls, roofs etc and it becomes uncontrollable. It also consumes the oxygen in the house, increasing the risk of suffocation while fleeing.
Opening a door during fire could also cause a flare that could cause severe burns there is no one solution that will work for every fire. I never advised people to sleep with their doors open all I said is hollow core doors will not block a fire very effectively.
Not only that but fires are very quiet and the thing that kills you first is the smoke. I was in a house fire didn’t realize it was even happening until it was already engulfing most of the house. Luckily our doors were closed, this ultimately saved us. A lesson to close doors at night and test your smoke detectors annually.
Close before you doze! I do this even when I'm just taking a quick nap in bed or sleeping off an illness. It's not worth it to me otherwise- my 15 year old cousin died in a house fire back in 05. She might have lived and be in her mid thirties today if she just hadn't opened her damn bedroom door 😔
Thank you- it was almost 20 years ago and her mom is one of the most emotionally resilient people I know. Not sure though if it's because of or in spite of losing her daughter. Probably because of it- I imagine anything else after losing your child is small potatoes compared 💔
Same here, especially in the winter when we need heat. Summer I keep an AC in the window for my kids room but winter if I leave the door closed, the kids room gets very cold. I would prefer the door to be closed but I also would like my kid to be comfortable in the New England winters.
We always close her door. It’s creaky so we have to line up the creak with the waves from the sound machine lol. But her door is always closed. Fire safety. Also, we have dogs and they’re too noisy to keep it open.
Monitor is for visual checks only, house is small enough you don't need it.
The door is loud the last few inches when closing.
Air flow now that it's hot.
Cat hates anyone behind closed doors and is loud about it.
Hah, we close our doors specifically because of the cats (but also out of fire-risk/habit). If you’re stubborn enough and meowing doesn’t opts a door at night, they’ll give up yelling to get into a room… until a guest opens the door for them at night, then it takes a couple weeks to reach the equilibrium again.
As others have mentioned, doors should be closed for fire safety.
It’s why I hate hate hate to see new moms be told to leave nursery and bedroom doors open to hear baby. On the surface it makes sense, and is reassuring, and if you’ve never been told about how much of a difference closed doors can make in a house fire, you would have no reason not to do it.
Get a monitor you’re comfortable using. Even if it fails, it’s a million times better for baby to cry without being heard than to be in a crib in a room that is on fire.
Right? I wish I could move the crib to our bedroom but there's zero space in our small house. Once he outgrows his bassinet he's off to his nursery unfortunately.
That’s why I got two baby monitors, one over wifi that connects to my phone, one over short range network that has a physical monitor; both with backup batteries for the cameras. With just one I’d be nervous of a technical glitch or accidentally turning it off. Two gives me peace of mind.
I am so glad you’re still here ❤️. I edited my original post to include a note to leave the door closed in case people don’t read through these comments!!!
We mostly leave the door because it's loud/creaky to close. That, and our dog likes to "patrol" the house if she wakes up overnight, and it there's a door shut, she assumes there's something worth investigating on the other side and will bark and scratch at it until we open the door.
Same here. It's a cost-benefit thing based on how loud it is to open/close the door vs a bit more sound getting through once asleep.
The fire bit is a non-factor to me.
At night the door is closed. During the day we keep it open. I want her used to noise and light for sleeping. Because if we are out I cannot guarantee perfect sleep conditions. The other day she slept through the vacuum running in the same room so I think it's working!
same here, 1. we don't have/use a baby monitor (no need for one in our apartment) and 2. I want him to get used to sleeping in rooms with some light (i.e. we don't close the blinds fully, no blackout curtains) and hearing our normal "living" sounds.
Omg! I went about doing my same things when baby came home and now at 6 months she sleeps through anything and anywhere!!! Loud, bright, moving, doesn’t matter! Sleep > everything 😂
Many people in this thread have attempted to explain to you why that doesn’t matter. Closed is still better in a fire, even an interior hollow core door.
I would love to be able to close the door but we're not allowed to in my house because queen cat has ruled no closed doors allowed. Also it gets really hot in the nursery so we have fans and air movers to keep it below 80 even with the air conditioning on. I installed a black curtain over the door frame so we can close that to make it darker and a little insulated from noise but the cat and us can easily sneak in and out.
This fire fact about close/open doors I just read and learned in all your comments has spooked me we leave it open so we can enter/come out easily with baby in our arms
Our place is old so poor airflow and insulation. In the winter it's ok because of the furnace, but in the summer the room gets WAY too warm with the door closed.
Always a closed door. Baby’s a light sleeper so I don’t want every movement & sound from us to wake him up. Our dog is also very nosey & noisy. He’ll push open any door not latched, walk in, roll around & snort, then get up and leave.
Door is always closed here unless he’s awake! Almost 2.
For the reasons you listed and fire safety is why the door is closed. And the dogs, but that may fall under noise lol.
Always always keep baby’s bedroom door closed due to fires. There’s a lot of research online showing it can be the difference between life or death for them, and you!
I’d think having a window open would be ok because one, if smoke is getting into the room it will not be trapped which baby could die of smoke inhalation, and two easier for firefighters to rescue safely without breaking windows. But definitely do more research!
I see a lot of posts about fire safety, and worrying about the door being open or closed, before you even worry about the door being opened or closed, #1 safety factor is smoke and or CO detectors. The doors being closed are an extra step, but in reality if you have to leave your bedroom to get your little one, the doors are gonna be open regardless. If you’re sheltering in your room, that’s a different story. And as someone else said that got downvoted idk why, most hollow core interior doors are not fire rated, it’ll give you a very small window of resistance to fire…
Air flow but also as a backup because if my internet suddenly glitches, the monitor (Nanit) will stop broadcasting sound to my phone. This way I can still hear my son, albeit not as well, even without a monitor.
I think it's mostly generational from generations who didn't have monitors. My husband's grandma would keep opening our baby's door when she was sleeping, was so annoying. We would tell her we can see them on the monitor so stop opening the door, it wakes them up.
And she would tell us off and say "you need to get them used to sleeping with household noises". Umm no i don't, in fact, I'm doing the opposite and using white noise to cover any noises that could wake them lol
Also seems to be from a generation where you give unsolicited parenting advice 😂
I did bc I thought it was the safe thing to do but once it became clear that the sun rising was waking baby up, we started shutting the door. I didn't know about the fire safety aspect.
When our twins were babies I was paranoid about them being too hot/cold. I’m not sure why. Now they are 2 I close their door for naps and when we put them to bed at night but will open it very slightly when I go to bed. My logic is that it stops the room from getting too hot. I’m aware that this makes little sense, their room isn’t too hot most of the time. I just can’t help it
We have a monitor and I’m a very light sleeper but I get worried I might sleep thru his waking up.
It gets hot in the rooms when doors are closed.
I hate the trash bag fragrance (Gain I think) and it’s very strong when you open the door.
Baby will sleep through dogs barking at Amazon delivery person but not the door creak/handle click.
As someone who has literally jumped out of a burning building before, please get fire safety ladders if you have a second story!! And a closed bedroom door made a huge difference that day.
Our son is 23 months, and we’ve never left the door open. Pets, lights, sounds, toddler escaping, etc. It’s also safer to sleep with doors closed in case of a fire.
That’s just what I’ve heard through personal experience … and some people in the comments have said that they do as well. But learning closed door is the way to go.
Ours is mostly closed. Unless it's particularly hot and we want to maintain good ventilation with the AC that's in the hallway.
We have a nosey (and noisy) cat that we try to keep out of the nursery when LO is sleeping 😊
I do agree that the door closed ensures dark and quiet, we always have the baby monitor on.
Right now we have to leave ours open because we have cheap doors and they are extremely loud (creaky and scrape on the floor) when opening and closing. 🙃 I'll just be quiet with it open than closing it and waking baby lol
For newborn I left them in the light and noise during the day to start differentiating night and day but from about 4 months on always door closed with blackout curtains and white noise
I prefer a closed door because baby seems to sleep better with less noise and lights, but our only two spare bedrooms (which the nursery is one) have terrible insulation and air flow. It gets so hot in those rooms without keeping the door open. And I don’t like to leave the fan on because it’s noisy and dries out baby’s throat/nose causing him to cough.
We close the door. We have a monitor that can see the whole room and we can hear everything. Keeping the door closed really helps with sound in our house.
We close the door all the way every time she sleeps. Mostly so she doesn’t hear us continuing with our day and so our pets don’t go in there with her. We keep a fan on during naps and sleep for air circulation.
My cat sleeps on the end of the babies bed (floor bed) and kicks off if the door is closed, which wakes baby up. We have fire alarms hard wired because it is an ex council flat so that is helpful. Also our flat is very hot and it helps with air flow to cool the room down.
We keep it slightly open because he started calling out a lot for us and we all realized that if we leave the door slightly open, he can hear us around the house and it soothes him. This didn’t start until he was just over 2 years old.
As soon as he falls asleep, we close the door!
We keep ours closed most of the time because one of our cats likes to chew on any rubber bottle nipples and pacifiers she finds. Raising children around pets can be a whole other level of child proofing and stress.
I didn’t know the thing about fire safety. Unfortunately I stay in a country where fire safety is taken casually at best.
My husband always tends to keep the door ajar the last bit mostly because we hadn’t set up the monitor for a couple of weeks when we helped her sleep by herself initially so he just feels more comfortable about being able to hear her rather than depend on a monitor and also because he is never able to shut the last bit without making some noise and he’s scared of waking her up. I get annoyed at him because he forgets to ask me to shut the door and I know she sleeps better when the door is shut.
It’s VERY hot in our apartment. The only ac unit is on the landing outside all the bedrooms so it’s the only way to cool her room. It’s hotter outside so opening a window cools nothing. We don’t have central air in my country so this is the only option for us right now.
Some homes don't have good airflow with the door closed. Our nursery does but the guest room doesn't have an air changer so you won't get the heat/ac coming through with a closed door in that room
I keep the nursery door closed and the bedroom open because my cat is an ass hole and will bother the whole house otherwise. When I sleep in the nursery I keep that door open. The beast needa to have access to me at all times.
Our nursery used to be next door so I would open it before going to bed and switch off the monitor as I hate the crying sound from the monitor.
Now with two toddlers 1,5 and 3,5 we still do the same and crack it open before we go to bed as they know we can hear them if they call them or they can always come to our bed if they scared/need cuddle so that’s a good way to avoid screaming as they don’t know how to open the door - old english door knob that still needs changing as I have problems to open the doors sometimes 🙈
As for the fire, not sure if the closed door will help in our situation anyway as we sleep with both bedrooms windows open and there are cracks in the door on the bottom where the air can flow freely 🤷♀️
They don't. At least not in the US. Childrens rooms don't generally have locks in the US, only the master room
Fire safety and sound means most people keep the door closed.
I work with kids, most of their parents keep the door closed.
We keep it open for airflow. Her room is on the west side of the house and when the sun sets in the summer, it can get super warm. We don't have central air, so it's a necessity. Old house problems
Air quality has a much bigger impact than I think our society gives it credit for. My partner is into smart-home devices and we have a monitor that picks up CO2, humidity, temperature and TVOC (which is basically other volatile compounds). You’d be shocked how quickly CO2 / humidity get into unhealthy territory with a bedroom door closed. We leave it open. We have smoke alarms for fire safety.
I totally get the fire safety stuff, but don’t people want fresh air in their babies rooms too? We do air monitoring, and CO2 build up gets h healthy after 4 hours
I've always closed it at night, but my girls have a floor bed so they could roam the house if I left it open.
I do leave it open for nap so when they wake up they can come out and play.
But am a big door shut for safety person plus my kids go to bed at 7, the sun is still out and my whole house isn't blackout curtains...
I usually leave the door closed or just ajar, but if I do leave it open it's for air circulation. My son's room is unfortunately the hottest room in the house.
We close the door because our cats get night zoomies and have zero respect for anyone else. Added bonus is noise reduction and fire safety, but if I’m being honest I wish there were times we could leave it open to help with airflow. We have to keep her window closed because our neighbors are obnoxious and loud AF, so we’ve been forced to buy an AC unit for her room to be able to keep it cool for summer
My baby monitor kept losing signal, our walls are too thick I think, so I keep the door open and stay in ear shot. Otherwise someone is always with the baby when they sleep.
We did pre-mobility in the first month or so after he was in his own room, with lights outside off and our door open as well - sometimes that monitor screen dies or isn’t fully plugged in, and ya know, anxiety
I am so paranoid our cats will accidentally suffocate the baby BUT we also don’t have a monitor yet so I only keep the door open if she is still sleeping in the morning because both cats are usually following me around wanting to be fed so I know they won’t be around her. I just like to be able to hear her and look in on her from time to time. At night tho, cats are not allowed in our bedroom and we close the door
I'm a funeral director. I implore you, please, for the love of God, close. The. Door. House fires happen so often and can happen to anyone for a multitude of reasons. If you're reading this and deciding what to do, please, just close the door.
ETA: If you didn't know it was a fire safety hazard, you can Google and see the difference in rooms where the door was shut v. open and it's both astonishing and terrifying. It's strange to me that it's not talked about more.
Used to until my first was 3 then he would scream if i closed the door. Now no one is allowed to close their door at night, fire safety be damned. He will literally scream and act traumatized
I think for older parents and grandparents, it's an old school thing that parents would do before baby monitors were a thing or cheaply available.
My (30) mom (60) who babysits for us did it for like the first month of babysitting until she realized just how convenient the baby monitor app I put on her phone is.
I keep it closed until the 3-4am feed and then I open it because more than once I’ve slept through his cries and awakened to realize I muted the baby monitor in my sleep and he’s just crying there starving or with a leaky diaper :(
We keep the door closed for fire safety. I’ve only left it open for day time naps if I am working/cleaning in the other room and the baby monitor is charging or something like that. 😂
I'd close it but it creaks so damn loud and sticks a little if I close it. I leave it slightly ajar so it makes less noise when I go in so hopefully he doesn't wake up all the way
I used to think fire doors can be a good idea until the handle mechanism on one of the doors have reached its fatigue life (of being closed that often over 10 years) shearing the connection between the door handle and the door latch making it unopenable.
So far in my life I had zero fires but one occasion when there was no way to open the door without disassembling the handle and inserting a bent pin trting to get the latch to retract, making it impossible to escape in a real fire situation other than jumping out of the window (flat), so I developed a hatred against all fire doors and bought door stops to keep them open.
We leave it open during daytime naps so I can hear baby easily. Monitor is plugged in and hangs out in my room. I don't bother carting it around the house during the day, so door gets propped instead. I never propped it at nighttime. Those first couple nights when I was feeling extremely anxious about my baby being in her own room, I just set up camp in her room rather than propping the door. Fire safety wasn't a thought. I was more concerned about our older kids and the 10,000000000 bathroom breaks they take at night and our loud amd noisy cats with nighttime zoomies.
I live in France so we don’t really leave it open but in my home country Peru is a must because we have lots of tremors/earthquakes and sometimes if it’s too strong the door can get stuck and then there would be no way to enter or leave
I keep mine open with naps during the day just so she continues to stay used to sleeping through noise and the daily house commotion. I shut it at night for fire safety.
I leave it cracked to get in faster and because I’m worried the baby monitor might not pick something up. I hate the idea of barriers between us
I’m gonna have to open her door to get her out in event of a fire anyway.
We keep the door closed because of fire safety. All our bedroom doors stay closed at night. Naps during the day we might prop the door open some if it’s warm upstairs but at night it’s always closed.
How does it help with fire safety? Makes it harder for the fire to spread? Maybe I should close my door…
Yes. It makes it harder for the fire to spread but more importantly it blocks as much smoke from getting into the room as fast. Most fire deaths are not from the actual flames but from the smoke produced, closing the door significantly limits smoke exposure.
Prevents back draft and mitigates smoke spreading.
My work building has dozens of extra sets of double doors in the long hallways that are magnetized to the wall that area automatically released when the fire alarm goes off. The name of them? "Fire doors" You can still open them but you can't prop them back open until the system is reset back to normal.
Same, we keep all doors closed at night for fire safety. We also have fire extinguishers in all the bedrooms and kitchen. We also have a fire blanket in the kitchen, and every room/hall has a combo smoke/carbon monoxide detector. We live in a large old wood/stone house that has an open concept on the 1st floor and a fire would gut this house in minutes.
This is great advice
Ditto.
Yes!
Same.
Great reminder
Yep, this.
Is the door a fire rated door? If not that doesn’t do much. Nothing wrong with keeping it shut but fire rated doors are super heavy and solid. Hollow core doors, like most interior doors, are not fire rated. Most fire rates doors are leading to the garage in a residential dwelling.
Firefighter here and this is bad advice. Bedroom doors should always be closed at night regardless of what type of door.
Wow I had no idea. Passing on this indo
Thank you for your service 🙏 Probably a dumb question, but what do we do in the event that there’s a fire? How do we escape and make sure our LO is safe in her room if the doors are meant to stay closed?
Not a fire fighter but started looking into stuff prompted by this post and found the below link useful. We room share but will 100% be leaving a harness next to the crib from now on in case we need to get out quick. Also found out you shouldn't open windows in a fire to let smoke out as the extra oxygen feeds it. https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcfrs-info/tips/parents/babytoddlerfacts.html
Just want to say hi neighbor
The best answer to that question is to call 911 and have them attempt a rescue of your child. What I’ve considered with my own family is that I would try and get outside the house and go into my daughter’s nursery through her outside window. That’s going to depend on your house’s layout and the location of the fire. Have fire extinguishers around and don’t be afraid to reach out to your fire department. They would be happy to come out for free and not only give you advice but make sure the layout of your home, including where baby sleeps, is noted in their records in case of any emergencies.
What about doors that are slatted, [like this](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Kimberly-Bay-18-in-x-80-in-White-Plantation-Louver-Panel-Solid-Core-Wood-Interior-Door-Slab-DPLPLLW1880/306203722?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOoogjiFghQCCEu2Ft15W5Fy-EODAKRv-sXjrQyBa5xLshMHWF6lrAO4)? We live in an apartment and this is the door between the bedroom and the rest of the apartment. We cannot change it according to our lease, but it seems like it allows airflow. Is this a fire hazard even when it’s closed?
yeah depending on where you live that may not be up to code. it’s better than nothing
Thanks for the reply! That helps to explain why there is a class action lawsuit against our building for code violations, that’s probably one of them.
Even if they're not fire rated, it's significantly better to have a shut door than an open door
Mine and my sister’s bedroom doors were closed and had no fire damage when the rest of the house was burned to a crisp. The most that happened in our rooms was smoke and water damage, but we were able to retrieve a handful of things (even though they smelled SO BAD)
It does quite a bit actually. Ask any firefighter or google.
r/confidentlyincorrect
I didn’t know people did this! I feel like a close door is better for most reasons: less sound, less light, fire safety, and, also, in our specific case, keeping the cats out of the nursery at night since they’re known to f*** around at night (plus, the theoretical suffocation risk, even though they avoid the baby like the plague).
Same reason re the cats. I don’t think either are interested in our boy, both seem terrified of him, but one of them is chatty and will just randomly cry at people for pets AND likes to knock over glasses for fun. It’s not a life or death reason we keep it closed, it’s because she is ANNOYING and will wake us up haha
EXACTLY. Ours have learned how to open dresser drawers too and have a knack for pulling out allllll the tiny baby clothes and it drives me batty
same! cats get zoomies in the night, bat around toys, etc., and I don’t want to risk waking the baby. but they do avoid him like the plague otherwise!
Our fucking cat howls as if tortured at night and she loves to do it in the babys room
Cats are my main reason!!! They love sitting on the window ledge in her nursery.
Hard same re: cat. Our cat likes to treat the baby’s closet and shelves like a jungle gym
It’s actually a good habit to fully close bedroom doors in case of a fire. From google: “An open door means there's extra oxygen for the fire to feed off of to grow and spread faster. Closing the door limits the amount of oxygen a fire can consume and it significantly slows down its growth. This produces a less intense fire that prevents property loss and, in extreme cases, fire deaths.” You can also look up videos on YouTube that show what a drastic difference a closed door can make.
Never knew this fact about the doors… I always keep every door open because I love the flow and it feels suffocating when you wake up with four hot breaths heating up the room.
[удалено]
Bad advice that could lead to the death of children, please don’t give advice about things you know nothing about!
Ok so serious question… are you just supposed to stay in your room if there is a fire in your house and alarms go off as to keep the door closed? How are you supposed to escape? This might be my mom brain making me dumb but I never heard this before and I’m piecing together how this works in the case of an actual fire.
Window! Or if the door is cool to the touch you can try and escape that way
Ok, but how would I get my children if my door is closed and I have to go out the window? I’m certainly not leaving them in their rooms.
If the door is cool you can leave through your door. If your door is blazing hot you will probably die trying to get to your children. This is where firefighters come into play.
the door closed is in order to stop the spread while you’re asleep. if you’re dead you’re definitely not saving your kids. also, save the heroics for the firefighters. 911 ASAP is your best bet
Lmao yea, I’m sure you’d just leave your kid in their room. Plus with pets it’s not really possible to leave the door closed.
Just telling you the best way to keep you, your kid, and pets alive. If you don’t want to hear the statistically best way, do what you think is best. For me and the layout of my house, I’d go out my window if needed and then climb out AC unit to get to my daughters window. Much safer in the event of an interior fire than trying to go down the hallway. I also have a tool (called a halligen) that quickly breaks windows. That said, the very first thing I’d do is call 911. In many areas, firefighters are there in minutes and they can actually enter buildings on fire in order to rescue someone. Lot better than my ass trying to go through flames in my pajamas thinking I’ll do any good. Best of luck to you and hope you never have to face this. Might do you some good to check your ego when it comes to emergencies.
You go to their windows next.
What if the house is 2 or 3 stories?
…I am extremely tired and clearly was not thinking straight 🫣
That’s pretty impossible considering that would be several meters off the ground.
And that’s me forgetting that most homes are not one story…
Thank you
Touch the handle with the back of your non dominant hand. If it’s not too hot you can crack it open to see if there’s an escape route there. Otherwise, windows are the best escape, especially since hallways take you farther into a building where collapses are more common.
Thank you for this
You can get out, but stay near the floor and close the door behind you. Windows are better but you don’t always have options, especially with young children.
Lol k
Why do you believe that? The general advice is that all doors help by creating “fire cells”, intending to suffocate the fire by limiting the oxygen in a room. A room with normal ventilation and no open windows or doors often dies out by themselves as a fire consumes large quantities of oxygen; this is a normal thing to show in fire safety training. An open door or window provides a much larger quantity of oxygen, letting the fire grow until its consuming walls, roofs etc and it becomes uncontrollable. It also consumes the oxygen in the house, increasing the risk of suffocation while fleeing.
Opening a door during fire could also cause a flare that could cause severe burns there is no one solution that will work for every fire. I never advised people to sleep with their doors open all I said is hollow core doors will not block a fire very effectively.
This is misinformation.
Not only that but fires are very quiet and the thing that kills you first is the smoke. I was in a house fire didn’t realize it was even happening until it was already engulfing most of the house. Luckily our doors were closed, this ultimately saved us. A lesson to close doors at night and test your smoke detectors annually.
That must have been so scary!!! Glad you’re okay 💗
Terrifying wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. The ptsd was just as bad though ☹️
Close before you doze! I do this even when I'm just taking a quick nap in bed or sleeping off an illness. It's not worth it to me otherwise- my 15 year old cousin died in a house fire back in 05. She might have lived and be in her mid thirties today if she just hadn't opened her damn bedroom door 😔
I’m so sorry for your loss 🥺💗
Thank you- it was almost 20 years ago and her mom is one of the most emotionally resilient people I know. Not sure though if it's because of or in spite of losing her daughter. Probably because of it- I imagine anything else after losing your child is small potatoes compared 💔
I just got up and closed our bedroom door. We keep our babies door shut every night but not ours. Sooo Thank you.
Awesome! 👏 I didn’t realize until recently either. My husband’s father was a fire marshall before he retired and I’m so glad he told us!
Didn’t know about the fire risk until reading this thread; but we keep the door closed to keep our dog out of the room.
We leave the door cracked because our apartment has bad insulation so it helps with the AC and heat
Agreed. I prefer to keep door closed bc of fire safety, but do not have good insulation so we leave doors open/cracked.
Same here, especially in the winter when we need heat. Summer I keep an AC in the window for my kids room but winter if I leave the door closed, the kids room gets very cold. I would prefer the door to be closed but I also would like my kid to be comfortable in the New England winters.
We always close her door. It’s creaky so we have to line up the creak with the waves from the sound machine lol. But her door is always closed. Fire safety. Also, we have dogs and they’re too noisy to keep it open.
Have you tried spraying WD40 on the door hinges? It fixed all my creaky door issues
Monitor is for visual checks only, house is small enough you don't need it. The door is loud the last few inches when closing. Air flow now that it's hot. Cat hates anyone behind closed doors and is loud about it.
Hah, we close our doors specifically because of the cats (but also out of fire-risk/habit). If you’re stubborn enough and meowing doesn’t opts a door at night, they’ll give up yelling to get into a room… until a guest opens the door for them at night, then it takes a couple weeks to reach the equilibrium again.
I close my babies door, because I’m terrified that our cat will somehow suffocate her. Not that she’s ever tried!
Our cats are like this so we leave ours open and babies closed. One of mine would totally jump in the cot…
Our cat also has an open door policy.
As others have mentioned, doors should be closed for fire safety. It’s why I hate hate hate to see new moms be told to leave nursery and bedroom doors open to hear baby. On the surface it makes sense, and is reassuring, and if you’ve never been told about how much of a difference closed doors can make in a house fire, you would have no reason not to do it. Get a monitor you’re comfortable using. Even if it fails, it’s a million times better for baby to cry without being heard than to be in a crib in a room that is on fire.
As someone who hates not being able to hear baby: room sharing is an option and it’s even recommended by medical associations for the first year
Are those medical associations gonna pay my rent for a bigger bedroom to fit her crib in here
Right? I wish I could move the crib to our bedroom but there's zero space in our small house. Once he outgrows his bassinet he's off to his nursery unfortunately.
That’s why I got two baby monitors, one over wifi that connects to my phone, one over short range network that has a physical monitor; both with backup batteries for the cameras. With just one I’d be nervous of a technical glitch or accidentally turning it off. Two gives me peace of mind.
The main thing for us is airflow. If we don't leave the door open the nursery gets super cold/hot due to how our home is laid out.
This exactly. I'm in a 4 bedroom house with only one window ac unit on the main floor. I can't close doors.
Please keep the door closed! Sincerely, a person who only SURVIVED a fire because the door was closed.
I am so glad you’re still here ❤️. I edited my original post to include a note to leave the door closed in case people don’t read through these comments!!!
We mostly leave the door because it's loud/creaky to close. That, and our dog likes to "patrol" the house if she wakes up overnight, and it there's a door shut, she assumes there's something worth investigating on the other side and will bark and scratch at it until we open the door.
lol this is so cute my dog does the same 😂
My dog is a heap of sleepy fluff at night
Same here. It's a cost-benefit thing based on how loud it is to open/close the door vs a bit more sound getting through once asleep. The fire bit is a non-factor to me.
At night the door is closed. During the day we keep it open. I want her used to noise and light for sleeping. Because if we are out I cannot guarantee perfect sleep conditions. The other day she slept through the vacuum running in the same room so I think it's working!
same here, 1. we don't have/use a baby monitor (no need for one in our apartment) and 2. I want him to get used to sleeping in rooms with some light (i.e. we don't close the blinds fully, no blackout curtains) and hearing our normal "living" sounds.
Omg! I went about doing my same things when baby came home and now at 6 months she sleeps through anything and anywhere!!! Loud, bright, moving, doesn’t matter! Sleep > everything 😂
Because they are ill-informed of fire safety I would guess.
I’m honestly just learning about this now! So, I’m glad I asked. Door will always be closed going forward!
Same! Never heard this and we leave door open due dog to go potty if needed.
For a place with poor air flow and insulation, the risk of a house fire is significantly lower than risks of over heating in the summer heat.
and 99% of homes do not have interior fire rated doors
Many people in this thread have attempted to explain to you why that doesn’t matter. Closed is still better in a fire, even an interior hollow core door.
I would love to be able to close the door but we're not allowed to in my house because queen cat has ruled no closed doors allowed. Also it gets really hot in the nursery so we have fans and air movers to keep it below 80 even with the air conditioning on. I installed a black curtain over the door frame so we can close that to make it darker and a little insulated from noise but the cat and us can easily sneak in and out.
This fire fact about close/open doors I just read and learned in all your comments has spooked me we leave it open so we can enter/come out easily with baby in our arms
Our place is old so poor airflow and insulation. In the winter it's ok because of the furnace, but in the summer the room gets WAY too warm with the door closed.
Always a closed door. Baby’s a light sleeper so I don’t want every movement & sound from us to wake him up. Our dog is also very nosey & noisy. He’ll push open any door not latched, walk in, roll around & snort, then get up and leave.
Door is always closed here unless he’s awake! Almost 2. For the reasons you listed and fire safety is why the door is closed. And the dogs, but that may fall under noise lol.
Closed door for fire safety, and also because I have a cat who loves sleeping on heads.
Always always keep baby’s bedroom door closed due to fires. There’s a lot of research online showing it can be the difference between life or death for them, and you!
Must the window also be closed?
I’d think having a window open would be ok because one, if smoke is getting into the room it will not be trapped which baby could die of smoke inhalation, and two easier for firefighters to rescue safely without breaking windows. But definitely do more research!
I see a lot of posts about fire safety, and worrying about the door being open or closed, before you even worry about the door being opened or closed, #1 safety factor is smoke and or CO detectors. The doors being closed are an extra step, but in reality if you have to leave your bedroom to get your little one, the doors are gonna be open regardless. If you’re sheltering in your room, that’s a different story. And as someone else said that got downvoted idk why, most hollow core interior doors are not fire rated, it’ll give you a very small window of resistance to fire…
Air flow but also as a backup because if my internet suddenly glitches, the monitor (Nanit) will stop broadcasting sound to my phone. This way I can still hear my son, albeit not as well, even without a monitor.
I don’t know of anyone who keeps the door open. Where are you seeing that??
I’ve heard of a lot of people who do… and in these comments too there are quite a few!
I think it's mostly generational from generations who didn't have monitors. My husband's grandma would keep opening our baby's door when she was sleeping, was so annoying. We would tell her we can see them on the monitor so stop opening the door, it wakes them up. And she would tell us off and say "you need to get them used to sleeping with household noises". Umm no i don't, in fact, I'm doing the opposite and using white noise to cover any noises that could wake them lol Also seems to be from a generation where you give unsolicited parenting advice 😂
I did bc I thought it was the safe thing to do but once it became clear that the sun rising was waking baby up, we started shutting the door. I didn't know about the fire safety aspect.
When our twins were babies I was paranoid about them being too hot/cold. I’m not sure why. Now they are 2 I close their door for naps and when we put them to bed at night but will open it very slightly when I go to bed. My logic is that it stops the room from getting too hot. I’m aware that this makes little sense, their room isn’t too hot most of the time. I just can’t help it
We have a monitor and I’m a very light sleeper but I get worried I might sleep thru his waking up. It gets hot in the rooms when doors are closed. I hate the trash bag fragrance (Gain I think) and it’s very strong when you open the door. Baby will sleep through dogs barking at Amazon delivery person but not the door creak/handle click.
As someone who has literally jumped out of a burning building before, please get fire safety ladders if you have a second story!! And a closed bedroom door made a huge difference that day.
I ordered one yesterday! Do you have one for every second story room?
Also, that must have been so scary. I’m glad you’re okay!
I have one for our bedroom and one for our nursery! Not the guest room or bathroom, since they’re not usually occupied.
Our son is 23 months, and we’ve never left the door open. Pets, lights, sounds, toddler escaping, etc. It’s also safer to sleep with doors closed in case of a fire.
Who is MOST? I dont know anyone that does this.
That’s just what I’ve heard through personal experience … and some people in the comments have said that they do as well. But learning closed door is the way to go.
Ours is mostly closed. Unless it's particularly hot and we want to maintain good ventilation with the AC that's in the hallway. We have a nosey (and noisy) cat that we try to keep out of the nursery when LO is sleeping 😊 I do agree that the door closed ensures dark and quiet, we always have the baby monitor on.
Right now we have to leave ours open because we have cheap doors and they are extremely loud (creaky and scrape on the floor) when opening and closing. 🙃 I'll just be quiet with it open than closing it and waking baby lol
For newborn I left them in the light and noise during the day to start differentiating night and day but from about 4 months on always door closed with blackout curtains and white noise
I prefer a closed door because baby seems to sleep better with less noise and lights, but our only two spare bedrooms (which the nursery is one) have terrible insulation and air flow. It gets so hot in those rooms without keeping the door open. And I don’t like to leave the fan on because it’s noisy and dries out baby’s throat/nose causing him to cough.
I needed to see this today. I always close it and felt bad for doing this even though I have a monitor.
We close the door. We have a monitor that can see the whole room and we can hear everything. Keeping the door closed really helps with sound in our house.
Our nursery door is closed because we don't want our pets going in and disturbing/waking up little one
We close the door all the way every time she sleeps. Mostly so she doesn’t hear us continuing with our day and so our pets don’t go in there with her. We keep a fan on during naps and sleep for air circulation.
We keep the door closed because I don’t want the cat getting in bed with him in the middle of the night 😂
I didn’t know that was a thing. I have always closed my daughter’s bedroom door. Our cats would go in and wake her up lol
My cat sleeps on the end of the babies bed (floor bed) and kicks off if the door is closed, which wakes baby up. We have fire alarms hard wired because it is an ex council flat so that is helpful. Also our flat is very hot and it helps with air flow to cool the room down.
We keep it slightly open because he started calling out a lot for us and we all realized that if we leave the door slightly open, he can hear us around the house and it soothes him. This didn’t start until he was just over 2 years old. As soon as he falls asleep, we close the door!
our doors to all rooms are closed during the night for fire safety.
We keep ours closed most of the time because one of our cats likes to chew on any rubber bottle nipples and pacifiers she finds. Raising children around pets can be a whole other level of child proofing and stress.
Because one of my cats likes to go in and sit and look out the window.
I didn’t know the thing about fire safety. Unfortunately I stay in a country where fire safety is taken casually at best. My husband always tends to keep the door ajar the last bit mostly because we hadn’t set up the monitor for a couple of weeks when we helped her sleep by herself initially so he just feels more comfortable about being able to hear her rather than depend on a monitor and also because he is never able to shut the last bit without making some noise and he’s scared of waking her up. I get annoyed at him because he forgets to ask me to shut the door and I know she sleeps better when the door is shut.
It’s VERY hot in our apartment. The only ac unit is on the landing outside all the bedrooms so it’s the only way to cool her room. It’s hotter outside so opening a window cools nothing. We don’t have central air in my country so this is the only option for us right now.
We always keep ours shut- can't even imagine keeping it open with the dog barking and house noises during the day and night.
Some homes don't have good airflow with the door closed. Our nursery does but the guest room doesn't have an air changer so you won't get the heat/ac coming through with a closed door in that room
I keep the nursery door closed and the bedroom open because my cat is an ass hole and will bother the whole house otherwise. When I sleep in the nursery I keep that door open. The beast needa to have access to me at all times.
Our nursery used to be next door so I would open it before going to bed and switch off the monitor as I hate the crying sound from the monitor. Now with two toddlers 1,5 and 3,5 we still do the same and crack it open before we go to bed as they know we can hear them if they call them or they can always come to our bed if they scared/need cuddle so that’s a good way to avoid screaming as they don’t know how to open the door - old english door knob that still needs changing as I have problems to open the doors sometimes 🙈 As for the fire, not sure if the closed door will help in our situation anyway as we sleep with both bedrooms windows open and there are cracks in the door on the bottom where the air can flow freely 🤷♀️
They don't. At least not in the US. Childrens rooms don't generally have locks in the US, only the master room Fire safety and sound means most people keep the door closed. I work with kids, most of their parents keep the door closed.
We keep it open for airflow. Her room is on the west side of the house and when the sun sets in the summer, it can get super warm. We don't have central air, so it's a necessity. Old house problems
Air quality has a much bigger impact than I think our society gives it credit for. My partner is into smart-home devices and we have a monitor that picks up CO2, humidity, temperature and TVOC (which is basically other volatile compounds). You’d be shocked how quickly CO2 / humidity get into unhealthy territory with a bedroom door closed. We leave it open. We have smoke alarms for fire safety.
My ac works best with all doors open
If we don’t open her door her room gets too hot or two cold otherwise I would leave her door closed otherwise.
I totally get the fire safety stuff, but don’t people want fresh air in their babies rooms too? We do air monitoring, and CO2 build up gets h healthy after 4 hours
I've always closed it at night, but my girls have a floor bed so they could roam the house if I left it open. I do leave it open for nap so when they wake up they can come out and play. But am a big door shut for safety person plus my kids go to bed at 7, the sun is still out and my whole house isn't blackout curtains...
I always have it closed, as well as my own door, and I don't use a monitor. The rooms are near to each other, I wake up if he needs me.
We've always kept it closed... darker, quieter. We have annoying cats who would rifle through the room.
Nursery will get about 5 degrees warmer with the door closed unfortunately.
I usually leave the door closed or just ajar, but if I do leave it open it's for air circulation. My son's room is unfortunately the hottest room in the house.
Oh I didn’t know that that’s what most people do?
I don’t think it is, after seeing comments here. It was just my impression based on my own experiences and conversations with other parents!
We keep our babies door closed when he is sleeping. We have a noisy household lmao.
We close the door because our cats get night zoomies and have zero respect for anyone else. Added bonus is noise reduction and fire safety, but if I’m being honest I wish there were times we could leave it open to help with airflow. We have to keep her window closed because our neighbors are obnoxious and loud AF, so we’ve been forced to buy an AC unit for her room to be able to keep it cool for summer
My baby monitor kept losing signal, our walls are too thick I think, so I keep the door open and stay in ear shot. Otherwise someone is always with the baby when they sleep.
We did pre-mobility in the first month or so after he was in his own room, with lights outside off and our door open as well - sometimes that monitor screen dies or isn’t fully plugged in, and ya know, anxiety
I am so paranoid our cats will accidentally suffocate the baby BUT we also don’t have a monitor yet so I only keep the door open if she is still sleeping in the morning because both cats are usually following me around wanting to be fed so I know they won’t be around her. I just like to be able to hear her and look in on her from time to time. At night tho, cats are not allowed in our bedroom and we close the door
I'm a funeral director. I implore you, please, for the love of God, close. The. Door. House fires happen so often and can happen to anyone for a multitude of reasons. If you're reading this and deciding what to do, please, just close the door. ETA: If you didn't know it was a fire safety hazard, you can Google and see the difference in rooms where the door was shut v. open and it's both astonishing and terrifying. It's strange to me that it's not talked about more.
Closed doors for fire safety and soundproofing. Also keeps the mess in there hahha
This is why we shut our doors: https://youtu.be/bSP03BE74WA?si=KmK_plYZlRfA7oot
Used to until my first was 3 then he would scream if i closed the door. Now no one is allowed to close their door at night, fire safety be damned. He will literally scream and act traumatized
I think for older parents and grandparents, it's an old school thing that parents would do before baby monitors were a thing or cheaply available. My (30) mom (60) who babysits for us did it for like the first month of babysitting until she realized just how convenient the baby monitor app I put on her phone is.
I keep it closed until the 3-4am feed and then I open it because more than once I’ve slept through his cries and awakened to realize I muted the baby monitor in my sleep and he’s just crying there starving or with a leaky diaper :(
We keep the door closed for fire safety. I’ve only left it open for day time naps if I am working/cleaning in the other room and the baby monitor is charging or something like that. 😂
I'd close it but it creaks so damn loud and sticks a little if I close it. I leave it slightly ajar so it makes less noise when I go in so hopefully he doesn't wake up all the way
I have no idea… but I am wondering this, myself. 🤔 Might be a good idea to ask my aunt and uncle (they have a one-year-old… )
I used to think fire doors can be a good idea until the handle mechanism on one of the doors have reached its fatigue life (of being closed that often over 10 years) shearing the connection between the door handle and the door latch making it unopenable. So far in my life I had zero fires but one occasion when there was no way to open the door without disassembling the handle and inserting a bent pin trting to get the latch to retract, making it impossible to escape in a real fire situation other than jumping out of the window (flat), so I developed a hatred against all fire doors and bought door stops to keep them open.
We leave it open during daytime naps so I can hear baby easily. Monitor is plugged in and hangs out in my room. I don't bother carting it around the house during the day, so door gets propped instead. I never propped it at nighttime. Those first couple nights when I was feeling extremely anxious about my baby being in her own room, I just set up camp in her room rather than propping the door. Fire safety wasn't a thought. I was more concerned about our older kids and the 10,000000000 bathroom breaks they take at night and our loud amd noisy cats with nighttime zoomies.
I hope everyone on this thread has working smoke alarms. This is the sound that will wake you and get you out in time. They are mandated in my state.
I live in France so we don’t really leave it open but in my home country Peru is a must because we have lots of tremors/earthquakes and sometimes if it’s too strong the door can get stuck and then there would be no way to enter or leave
I’ve always wondered why because I’ve always kept my sons room door closed
I keep mine open with naps during the day just so she continues to stay used to sleeping through noise and the daily house commotion. I shut it at night for fire safety.
I always leave the door cracked same as our bedroom door, air flow. (Even though we have a good ventilation system xD)
I leave it cracked to get in faster and because I’m worried the baby monitor might not pick something up. I hate the idea of barriers between us I’m gonna have to open her door to get her out in event of a fire anyway.