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baby gate help please


Pamela H in Texas
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After my first kid climbed up the baby gate and slid head first down the steep stairs, DH installed a half height door at the top. Hinged to the wall and everything. After we moved, the living area was downstairs and I just used regular tension-style gates with vertical bars to keep the baby from going up. The vertical bars made it harder to climb over. We still use them to keep the dogs out of the bathroom that has the cats litter box. It has a swinging latch you can open one handed.

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We have a staircase it's virtually impossible to gate off.

 

Instead, we had a carpenter turn DS's bedroom door into a Dutch door, with a hook to keep the top half of the door open. We reversed the knob to lock the bottom half from the outside. (If you have the circular saw, it's probably easy to do yourself. You need an extra pair of hinges, and a barrel bolt to connect the top and bottom back together when needed.)

 

We had tried a pressure gate at his bedroom door first, but the opening is non-standard by just about 1/8", meaning he could knock the gate down. (They only adjust to the nearest inch IIRC.)

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We got a gate from IKEA that we mounted 5 steps up from the bottom. We wanted to leave access to practice on the stairs but not so f at that we worried too much (our stairs and floor are carpeted -- for a hard floor I might have only gone up 2-3 steps). We never gated the top because we are rarely upstairs.

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I have considered a dutch door (would work for the top, not the bottom). Thankfully, he will rarely be upstairs.  The master and his nursery are on the first floor as is the bigger toy/young kids' playroom.  

 

 

Not gating is not a choice for two reasons:

 

First, as foster parents, we have to follow the rules so need gates.  

 

Second, this baby is already wearing me out. I would wither away to absolutely nothing if I couldn't at least block the stairs. I'm already *very* concerned about giving him freedom of the downstairs considering he has me running after him and his getting into things non-stop now when I have him contained to one room the great majority of the time.

 

 

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We used Kidco hardware-mounted gates for 8 years, and were able to take them down just last week as our 2-year-old can climb stairs with confidence.  We are elated!  But really, the Kidco gates were very easy to install, and held up well with some minor repairs over the years.  

 

http://www.kidco.com/products-page/safety-gates/hardware-mount-gates/

 

ETA:  I forgot to add that we installed a Kidco gate at the top and the bottom of the stairs.

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We had a step-over tension baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, and just used it when needed.  At the top, we had a wall mounted gate that could be pressed in a certain way to open. It also had a doorbell looking device that mounted on the wall above it, and I could press it with my elbow if my hands were full.

 

Someone (Babies r Us?) used to sell a sectional baby gate that mounted on the wall on each end. We had it around our fireplace in one house, and added extended sections to go around the Christmas tree, during that time of year.  It was not the most attractive thing, but worked well for three toddlers.

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We have a split entrance house with a very wide half flight of stairs from the front entrance to the main living area. We purchased a gate comprised of sections that collapse together and hinged on one end to swing out of the way when not in use. To mount the latching mechanism, dh needed to add an extension to the existing half wall/banister, which he made of wood and painted to match the adjacent walls. It works so well, we never took it down and now use it with the grandkids!

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We had the wood ones you screw to the wall. I really like them because there's no bottom bar to trip over and they were straightforward to get open and you could get a version that was extendible. They also looked nice, they were Babydan I think. I had friends with the pressure mount ones and no one seemed to be able open them without major hassle. 

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There are a lot of different sized gates available. We've used "baby gates" for our dogs before we even had children, and we still need them for the dogs. ;)  We tend to prefer wooden gates for their strength and safety (young children cannot usually climb over them).

 

At the top of stairs, we use wooden gates that can be anchored into the wall or sturdy railing. At the bottom of stairs we may not achor the gate, depending on the size and circumstances (we have a wide stair and no wall, and the railings wouldn't support the gate). There we rested the extra-wide gate between the rails.

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