Gates

[psimpson3-5]

I lent my BB book to someone and haven't seen it since. Can you please suggest your favorite gate? I need one for my staircase. I'd prefer one that doesn't need to be mounted, but would be okay if that's the best one available. TIA!

[lizzywednesday]

I lent my BB book to someone and haven't seen it since. Can you please suggest your favorite gate? I need one for my staircase. I'd prefer one that doesn't need to be mounted, but would be okay if that's the best one available. TIA!

It's not safe to have a pressure-mounted gate for stairs; you really do need the hard-install if you're keen on safety. Pressure mounted gates get defeated and at the tops of your stairs, that could be VERY dangerous, not just for Baby, but also for adults!

That said, I bought wall-mount, swinging door gates for our stairs, left them for DH to install while DD and I were out for an afternoon and came home to no gates installed, DH watching the Jets losing, and excuses about not having the right tools for the job.

The following week, he promised to get the right equipment ... and when we got back from our commitment, he fed me a line of bull about not wanting to drill holes in the walls. I could have killed him because (a) I'd spent $100 on PATRULL gates from IKEA and (b) he had ALREADY OPENED THE FREAKING PACKAGES and lost the hardware, so I couldn't return them.

So, while I understand not wanting to hard-install them, you'd be safer to do it. Or don't gate the stairs & teach your LO how to bump up and down on his bum.

[mommylamb]

I'll be honest, we've never put a gate at the top of our stairs. We don't spend a lot of time upstairs, and when we are, I'm with DS2 and we go into one of the bedrooms and close the door. He knows how to go down the stairs on his tummy. We never gated the stairs with DS1 either. Maybe it's bad, but I just didn't want to deal with a gate up there.

We have a large kitchen and family room area with a half bath on our main level, and I gate that area off from the rest of the house so that he doesn't have access to the stairs unless I'm with him and watching. The gate we use is pressure mounted with a foot pedal and I love it.

[kaharris83]

We have this at the top of our stairs and it is great. We've been using it for over 2 years with no problems.
http://www.toysrus.com/buy/health-safety/safety-gates/extensions-accessories/munchkin-easy-close-metal-gate-extra-tall-wide-31077-10963317

[NCGrandma]

Since I'm the official safety-gear grandma in my family, I did some research on this and I got a hardware-mounted Kidco gate like this when DGD2 started getting mobile: http://www.kidco.com/products-page/hardware-mount-gates/g2000/. Once installed, it's been very sturdy and satisfactory. HOWEVER, my super-handy DIL said that the installation was the worst of anything she had ever installed or assembled. I also got them a retract-a-gate for an outdoor deck stair. It was much easier to install and pretty easy to use. They did not want this for indoor stairs, though, because they were afraid that distractable DGD1 would forget to close it. The Kidco gates are harder to overlook.

[specialp]

My favorite is kidco extra tall and wide automatic close door which is pressure mounted at the bottom of the stair (so a y spindle on one side and pressure mounted to the wall on the other side). Love the auto close, how tall and sturdy it is, easy to install, but again, it is at the bottom of the stair b/c it is pressure mounted and we would not use it for the top. For the top of the stairs we have kidco angle mount safeway gate. It is mounted into the wall on one side and a banister kit on the other. Like it, but wish it was autoclose. My least favorite by far was the retract-a-gate. Such a pain in a high traffic area so my husband ended up moving it to an outside area and building a gate of solid wood to work in place of that one because none of the others would work in that specific area.

[3blackcats]

http://www.kidco.com/products-page/pressure-mount-gates/g180/

I love this gate so much I had 3 of them! The way my stairs were was that I could pressure mount at the top of the stairs and it just to the top of a landing, so not straight down the stairs. They installed so tightly with the Y-spindle I couldn't even budge them. Specialp above mentioned the kidco gates too. Loved the open with one foot and auto close.

[psimpson3-5]

Thank you for your suggestions. I should have explained the need for the gate a bit more clearly. We live in a townhome, which is a first floor walk up. I need the gate for the top of the staircase that leads to our front door. This way when DH, DS and I are spending our time on the main level of the house, we can let DS have more freedom on the first floor. It's always scary when he passes the staircase. DS has pretty much ignored the stairs so far, but we'd much rather be safe then sorry. He knows how to go up stairs, but not down. I'm going to check out the kidco gates. I have Amazon Prime, so I will try looking there first. Thanks again!

[wendibird22]

We used the gate that NCGrandma linked to. We mounted it with the bannister adaptor on one side and wall mount on the other. It was a workhorse for gosh, 4yrs, through 2 kiddos and countless times up/down stairs on a daily basis. We used the same type at both top and bottom of the stairs.