Hot not to teach your child to be more careful

Today was not a fun one.  You know those moments as parents where you are see something bad happening but are completely powerless to do something about it?  Today was like that.  I was sitting on the couch nursing Charlie and Maggie was upstairs playing with John.  I could hear her on the balcony and it sounded like her and John were playing around.  I was about to say something to John about playing around by the stairs, when suddenly Maggie fell.  John comes running out of the bedroom, I laid down Charlie and ran, but there was no stopping her.  She tumbled all the way to the bottom of the stairs.  I could hear myself yelling, my baby my baby girl in the 3 steps it took me to get there and scoop her up.

She was fine, but scared.  So was I.  I shook so hard for almost an hour.  It definitely interrupted nap time because we were afraid to lay her down.  My precious little girl always wants to be so big.  She wants to go up and down the stairs without holding on.  I have no idea what happened, I think she just lost her balance because she wasn't playing around out there, and the dog wasn't near her or anything.

I have talked with lots of my mommy friends in the past about when to let her start going up and down on her own.  She walks up and down them so well all the time.  I still worried, knowing that even I have lost my balance and fallen, or slipped or missed a step.  It happens to pretty much everybody at some point, but why oh why did she have to fall all the way down.  So thankful that she is fine, just a bit scared, but I will still worry about her tonight when I lay down to bed. For now, I will go sit in my favorite room in our house and try to relax before bed.

How old were your little ones when you started allowing them to go up and down stairs in the house alone?