Gates for top & bottom of stairway?

[melissaea]

Mixed feeling on this - we have a stairway that goes down about 8 steps, turns to the left, goes down 3 steps, turns left again, and down another 8 steps.

My nephew (18 months) has learned to back down the steps pretty darn well, so I feel pretty good about him going up and down them. Also, since each set of steps is maximum 8 steps, even if he DID fall, he wouldn't fall too far.

I wanted to get a gate for the top and bottom of our staircase for when my baby starts toddling, but wasn't sure if I shoudl PREVENT him from becoming familiar with the stairs by blocking them off to him completely.

What do you think?

If you think gates are 100% the way to go, what kind would you recommend for a small opening at the top and bottom of the stairs (about 25 inches wide). We use these stairs 10 times a day, so I want something easy to open or easy to step over I guess....

[jgriffin]

DH and my dad just installed a gate at the top of our staircase. Our staircase goes down 3 steps to a landing, turns 180, goes down 10 steps to another landing, turns 90, and ends with 3 steps. One reason we waited such a long time to install one is that E just isn't ever unsupervised upstairs. We have let him practice going up and down the stairs at the top quite a bit, so he's pretty proficient, but not enough that I trust him.

Something we didn't think of until we installed the gate is that E can easily fit through the banisters. In fact, the gate does *nothing* to keep him from going downstairs if he wants, due to the way our staircase is set up (totally kid-unfriendly, but it is good for the cats). So even though we had hoped he could wander from his room to our room alone, we still don't let him out unsupervised. :( And, as DH said, we are almost encouraging him to try to go through the banister railings, since the "regular" staircase route is blocked.

FYI: the gate we installed was a Kidco one, and both my dad and DH proclaimed it as cr*p. Probably not one you would use, since our opening is 44".

[o_mom]

I would block off your banister railings some how, regardless of the gate. If his head gets too big to get through it is very, very dangerous.

[o_mom]

8 steps is a long way. Just looking at my staircase, eight steps up is around 5 feet high. I certainly wouldn't want my baby falling 5 feet. Our stairs have always been gated and both boys learned to go up and down with no problems.

Get a wall-mounted gate for the top of the stairs and a pressure gate for the bottom. Then when you are ready, put the pressure gate up one or two stairs with some padding at the bottom so he can practice.

Kidco gates are long lasting and easy to operate one-handed. We have a Center Gateway at the bottom of our stairs. I'm not sure if it will go down to 25 inches, though. We also have a First Years Simple and Secure Stair gate at the top, but it only goes down to 29.5" The Lascal KiddyGuard is a retractable gate that can go very narrow, but I'm not sure how easy it is to open/close.

[jgriffin]

That's the eventual plan, although honestly E has such a tiny head that my biggest concern for the next few months is just him falling through completely. Is plexiglass the only way to do this?

[o_mom]

There are some netting type products out there, but IME they don't work well. They are easy for a child to undo or pull down and look bad. I think we paid $100 installed for the plexiglas on our railing (about 10 feet) and it has been worth every penny. They don't even notice that it is there to mess with it. It is so solid that they don't even try to pull it down. I have also seen one rolled plastic one somewhere - it may be better than the netting, but seems like it would be hard to secure the ends so they wouldn't invite toddler playing.

If you or your DH are handy it is not a difficult thing. You would need to find a place to cut the pieces to size (we needed two pieces because of the length - the seam is taped with clear packing tape) and then you drill holes about 3-4 in from top and bottom, on either side of a spindle. You will need 2-3 sets of holes for each piece depending on the length. Then just use cable ties to attach it.

It is very easy to crack the plastic, though, so use a special bit, drill slow and make sure there is support underneath. Also, don't get too close to an edge. We had someone do it for us so that if it cracked it was their problem :-).

[mommysammi]

Sorry to tag onto the OP. I just wanted to ask you who did you ask to install the plexiglass? Thank you.

[mypa]

I really like the EvenFlo Top of Stair gate. It's wooden and slides in so it's great for narrow spaces. I hated the metal Kidco one because it banged loudly onto a wall when I opened it and made too much noise when closing it. And since it didn't slide there was not much room to navigate around it. Also, when left open the metal arms were sticking out.

The EvenFlo gate is also cheap-only $35 and is super easy to operate as I go through it multiple times a day. You just squeeze and slide in or out, and it works well with my small hands which is something I couldn't do well with the Kidco gate.

I have the EvenFlo gates installed only at the top of two stairways. This way he was able to experience going up and is now starting to learn to go down on his own. When we are upstairs I can freely go to the bathroom and such with the gate closed. When we are downstairs he is closely supervised so that he does not go up the stairs by himself.

[o_mom]

I found a "babyproofer" through the coupon book given out during my hospital stay. I'm not sure how else to find them. I think there is some sort of national babyproofing association, maybe you can find it on Google?

[o_mom]

> I hated the metal
>Kidco one because it banged loudly onto a wall when I opened
>it and made too much noise when closing it.

For anyone that has this problem, we have a piece of pipe foam on our gate. Basically, it is just a 18 in piece of foam tube that is split on one side. Just open at the split and popo it onto the top of the gate.