locks on kids room doors?

[pixielou]

do you have locks on the door to your child's bedroom?

the house we just bought has locks on all the bedroom (and bathroom) doors. they are the push button type locks - there's a hole on the outside of the door that you can push a skinny dowel in to unlock the door.

dd is 2.9. she has no clue about the concept of locks. she thinks it's fun to push the button. so i'm constantly locked out of every bedroom upstairs, as well as the bathrooms. right now it's mainly an annoyance factor.

i'm thinking of changing all the doornobs to non-locking type. my first thoughts is that there is absolutely no reason a child should ever need a lock on their door. i'm just wondering if i'm overlooking something and their is some reason i should just leave the doors alone.

~pixie

[jajacobsen]

Well, if it is not your forever house, the next set of owners might appreciate the locks.

They are useful to isolate a scared or sick animal from the remainder of the house -especially when having a party - we do this to ensure that no one lets our cats out. They and a box go in a quiet - and locked - upstairs bedroom. I have peace of mind and the cats are much calmer.

I gre up with dors like this and occassionally we did lock the doors. My mom ruled with an iron fist and taught us this was a no no early on. easiersaid tahn done, I suppose.

[Peever]

Well, if you ever sell the house, most people expect to have locks on at least the master bedroom and the bathroom doors. We have the kind of egg shaped handles that have a lock that you have to turn on the inside so my 3 yr old doesn't mess with them very much. He's only locked himself in his room once and I just took a knife to turn the dial from the outside to unlock it. I will say it's nice to have a lock on your bathroom door, at the very least, because I know my son will open it on me (or anyone else) when we have company, which makes for a bit of an awkward situation! It's also nice to leave the lock on your master bedroom door because he's tried to open it while I'm changing when we have house guests.

[almostthere]

Just turn them around for now - our locks are on the outside (you can then keep the same door knobs and not spend more money and for the next owner turn them back). This was our solution.

[emschwar]

We took all the locks off our doors. First, I didn't want Noah locking himself in the rooms (even our bedroom) and I grew up in a house where rooms were never locked. I'd rather have non-locking doors so Noah (and our other kids) never think it's an option. I just don't like the idea of having locked rooms in our family. I'm not worried about future selling of the house. It's so easy to change the knobs that new owners can either do it themselves, or we can do it for them if they insist.

[Winter Biscuit]

I'm not worried about future selling of the house. It's so easy to change the knobs that new owners can either do it
themselves, or we can do it for them if they insist.

I agree. I definitely don't think people would make a decision to buy or not buy a house based on whether there are locks on the doors. They might appreciate them, sure, but I don't think they're a deal-breaker. They are not that expensive, and can be easily added. (I do think people expect to have locks on bathroom doors -- I am referring to not expecting locks on childrens bedroom doors.)

Having said that, we bought a new house 2 years ago (new construction) and locks did come on all the bedroom and bathroom doors. After DD locked us out of the house TWICE before she even turned 2, we knew it wouldn't be a good idea to have a lock on her door. What if there was an emergency and we had to grab her and run/escape ASAP? I don't exactly want to have to be fumbling with a lock trying to get it unlocked as fast as I can in a situation like that, ya know?

What we ended up doing was taking the locks off the 2 girls' bedrooms and we put them on closets. We now have a lock on our linen closet in our master bathroom (where we keep all the medicine, nailpolish, etc.) and there is also a lock on a utility closet downstairs (where we keep chemicals, cleaning supplies, etc.) It was easy to switch them out. We have the type of doors where we could not just turn them around and put the lock on the outside, so our only option was to switch the knobs with another door or buy new ones. I see no reason for my girls to have locks on their doors right now. IMO, it's just asking for trouble. (Remember, I've been locked out of my house TWICE by a smarter-than-thou toddler.) When they get older (tweens, teens) and they want locks on their doors, we can easily switch them again if we're still in this house.

[Jenyfer9]

I'm not sure I would like the idea of "flipping" a doorknob... you could very easily get locked IN a room instead of OUT of a room. Obviously, the ideal would be to never be locked in or out, but I think that I'd rather be locked out than locked in. That being said, we did replace the doorknob on ds#1's room to one that does not lock.

[mamax2]

We have locks on our bedroom and bathroom doors. IIRC, it's code and so our house wouldn't have passed inspection had we done otherwise. Since that time, yes, we've been locked in and out of rooms - A LOT! However, we have egg-shaped knobs and they unlock so easily - a long fingernail will do it in a pinch. We haven't switched any knobs out because it hasn't become that major of an issue at this point. We do have a no locking policy and I enforce that. If it became an every day battle, I'd certainly switch the knobs out, but I'd hate to do it since I just shelled out a bunch of money for all these knobs last year!

[LeighW]

All our bedroom and bathroom doors have locks. I thought it would be an issue, but it really isn't. I had intended to switch them out but never got around to it.

I do appreciate having the locks once in a while when I am desperate for 5 minutes in the bathroom by myself. Otherwise, we enforce a no locking policy for the bedrooms.

Ours also unlock easily with a coin or long fingenail.

[pixielou]

thanks for all the input. i think i'll tough it out for a bit - maybe once the excitement of a new house dies down, i can institute a no locking policy.

for now, i have an apropriately seized allen wrench sitting on top of the door frames all over the house!

also, i realize i wasn't clear - if i do end up changing the knobs, i do intend to keep the locks on the bathrooms, and most likely the master bedroom. i would just change the knobs on the other bedrooms.

~pixie

[luckiestgirl]

...

[eb23sheree]

We had the same problem with DD. What was scary was when she'd run into the bathroom and quickly lock the door, which sent me into panic mode trying to find the screwdriver to put into the little hole to get it unlocked.

HERE is what we did!!!! We went to Babies R Us and got some of those plastic door knob safety things that you put on the outside of your door knob. Kids can't open the door with those things on because you have to pull the knob towards you and squeeze the sides. It works wonders. Now we don't have to worry about DD running out of the house or going into rooms locking the doors because the doors can't be opened unless we do the opening.

[MizLarner]

My 3yo and 1yo have no clue that the lock even exists on their door. 8yo was taught from day 1 that he was not to use the lock. He got in trouble a few times, and the funny thing now is that the door is messed up and will lock closed if it latches entirely. So to keep his brothers out of his room, he just has to shut his door all the way, and pop it open with a shopping card when he's ready to go back in.

[MizLarner]

HERE is what we did!!!! We went to Babies R Us and got some of those plastic door knob safety things that you put on the outside of your door knob. Kids can't open the door with those things on because you have to pull the knob towards you and squeeze the sides. It works wonders.

My son was able to open doors even with those covers on, when he was 2, just by chance because of the way he opened doorknobs anyway. He would bat at the cover and make it go around and around, and then he'd pull straight down on the knob to turn it... pressing the latch against the knob and open comes the door. FWIW.