Which playpen?? Which gates? Need major babyproofing advice

[new_mom_mry]

I am very, very new to babyproofing and alas I don't even know where to start. DS is 7.5 months old and just started army crawling. He spends most of his time playing in the living room, which is located on the 2nd floor of our house adjacent to the dining room and kitchen. I was thinking of getting a playpen so that he would have a safe place to play while I am cooking in the kitchen, and wanted your feedback on which one to get.

Would the Superyard XT be a good choice or would you recommend something else?
http://www.amazon.com/North-States-S.../dp/B00020L78M

Also, which pressure mounted gates would you recommend to get for the top and bottom of our stairs in the picture? We live in a 3 story house and will need 4 gates...I've read that pressure mounted gates might be less than ideal for top of the stairs, but are there any that are fairly safe?? Would love to avoid drilling any holes....

[weech]

I have almost the exact same set of stairs but with a column on the far left. I think the rule is that you can't use pressure mounted gates at the top of stairs - there's just no safe way to do it.

We used two retract a gates. They're wall mounted on the far left and right with a banister kit in the middle. I can take a picture tonight if you want.

We also have a superyard and tried it with DS (because we didn't want to put holes in the walls ) but he flipped out. That kid will not be caged! I would use the superyard for temporary situations, but not as an everyday thing, but that's just me. With the gates, he has free run of the entire kitchen/living room/dining room area and is totally happy and safe.

http://www.retract-a-gate.com/

[new_mom_mry]

I have almost the exact same set of stairs but with a column on the far left. I think the rule is that you can't use pressure mounted gates at the top of stairs - there's just no safe way to do it.

We used two retract a gates. They're wall mounted on the far left and right with a banister kit in the middle. I can take a picture tonight if you want.

We also have a superyard and tried it with DS (because we didn't want to put holes in the walls ) but he flipped out. That kid will not be caged! I would use the superyard for temporary situations, but not as an everyday thing, but that's just me. With the gates, he has free run of the entire kitchen/living room/dining room area and is totally happy and safe.

http://www.retract-a-gate.com/

please do take a picture! I checked out the website and these gates look cool! Love the fact that they are retractable. Would I need 4 gates for a 3 story house then and 4 banister kits? Good point re: not all kids liking to be contained. Seeing how my DS hated being swaddled and tries to get out of his high chair by pulling himself up, I have a feeling that he might not love the superyard either, at least for prolonged periods of time.

[smiles33]

I definitely would drill for any gates at the top of a staircase. If your DS runs into/falls onto a pressure-mounted gate, he could go tumbling down the stairs. VERY SCARY.

For the top of the stairs, I got Kidco's Safeway. Easy to drill the holes into the wall and rather than drill into the staircase banister, we got a 2x4 and bungee corded it to the wall. Kidco sells a kit that's MUCH flimsier than a 2x4 so I knew it was safe. Plus, I couldn't get that thing to budge at all despite using all 150 pounds of my strength pushing/leaning into it. Here's a photo of what we did.



Here's the side that had to drill into the wall:



I bought this one for the bottom of the stairs:



It's the Kidco Center Gateway.

[new_mom_mry]

I definitely would drill for any gates at the top of a staircase. If your DS runs into/falls onto a pressure-mounted gate, he could go tumbling down the stairs. VERY SCARY.

For the top of the stairs, I got Kidco's Safeway. Easy to drill the holes into the wall and rather than drill into the staircase banister, we got a 2x4 and bungee corded it to the wall. Kidco sells a kit that's MUCH flimsier than a 2x4 so I knew it was safe. Plus, I couldn't get that thing to budge at all despite using all 150 pounds of my strength pushing/leaning into it. Here's a photo of what we did.



Here's the side that had to drill into the wall:



I bought this one for the bottom of the stairs:



It's the Kidco Center Gateway.

thank you so much for your detailed response!! You mentioned that Kidco also sells a banister kit--do you by chance have a link to it? Does it work for all of their gates?

[smiles33]

This is the one I saw and returned. It's just plastic zip ties and a very thin piece of wood (not sturdy like a 2x4).




Here is a nicer sturdier one at Target for $40. I can't post the photo here as it's one of those embedded images.

[LearningAsWeGo]

Another vote for retract-a-gate. How many you need depends b/c they are really easy to move around, so if you spend most of the time on one floor, you could have two up (one on the top of the stairs going down, one of the bottom of the stairs going up) and then when you move to the other floor for period of time, you could move one of the gates with you. Totally depends on what you want to spend vs. how often you want to move the gates.

We have 3 gates and 5 sets of brackets (including one on the deck so we can keep the boys from going down the stairs when we want to keep a closer eye on them).

I hope this makes sense!

[weech]

please do take a picture! I checked out the website and these gates look cool! Love the fact that they are retractable. Would I need 4 gates for a 3 story house then and 4 banister kits? Good point re: not all kids liking to be contained. Seeing how my DS hated being swaddled and tries to get out of his high chair by pulling himself up, I have a feeling that he might not love the superyard either, at least for prolonged periods of time.

I'll take one tonight after work. We only have two gates. Like a pp said, the gates themselves can be removed and attached to different brackets around the house. So you could potentially just buy two gates, and however many mounting kits you need and then move the gates around the house. The gates come with wall mounting brackets, so for those stairs, we bought a banister kit and have a spare wall mounting kit (since I only wall mounted on one side for each).

[weech]

Here's the pictures:

[new_mom_mry]

Here's the pictures:

thank you so much!!! they are very helpful.