Baby Gate for Stairs... - Seattle,WA

I bought a Kidco G20 metal/hardware mounted safety gate for the top of our stairs off of Craigs List. It works wonderfully! Very easy to open for the parents, very sturdy for toddlers who like to rattle it, and very easy to install. Took my dad and me literally five minutes to install...with no swearing, which is always the measuring tool for "easy-ness" when my dad does anything with tools. Brand new it is like $60-$70, but I got it for $20!

Hello M.-

I suggest looking at the Safety First website http://www.safety1st.com/usa/eng/ when looking for a gate. They have a lot of wonderful baby "proofing" items for parents. This is one of the sites I recomend to the parents I coach, (I'm a parent coach).

Make sure you choose a gate that is attached to the wall, not a pressure gate. It will "damage" the wall, but after 16 years working with children in the home, I've seen too many near misses from pressure gates. Just a few good pushes and the gate will fall down.

Good Luck!!

R. Maby

We actually went with a xlarge dog gate (built for great dane type dogs). They're a heckuva lot sturdier...ours was rated for dogs up to 200 lbs, and made of round laquered metal and wood that was non-toxic (since dogs chew even more than kids)... and for the width we needed, a lot less expensive than the corresponding babygate. The one we chose also had a locking latch door so we could swing it open to walk through and then latch it securely behind us. The last upside, was that when we no longer needed it 3 years later we resold it on craigslist as a dog gate, for nearly full price. Most people are more than willing to buy used things for their dogs, but less willing (especially for safety stuff) to buy used things for their kids.

Also, because it was so sturdy, we kept it up long past when we needed it for wobbly wee ones (we didn't have stairs until kiddo was 2.5)... but it was very very useful for our rambunctious 4/5 yo and his friends when they were being rough and tumble.

I don't have a specific one to recommend since we didn't use one on our stairs, but make sure it's a wall mounted one. Pressure mount ones aren't safe for use at the top of the stairs since IF they get knocked down, kiddo can go down the stairs. Good luck!

We have the First Years Everywhere Gate (I've seen it called the clear swing gate too) and love it. You can pressure mount it but because it's at the top of our stairs we used the hardware to attach it. It has a clear window that the kids can see through and my kids have never found a way to climb it. It swings easily and quite wide to go through and locks securely.

Maybe this isn't possible in your house, but we mounted our baby gates near the stairs but not at the top. This way if our kiddo knocks it down, he's not falling down the stairs with the gate. We use the pressure mounted ones because we didn't want more holes in the walls and so taht we could remove them easily. Just a suggestion.

I bought the Evenflo top of the stairs gates and I use them throughout my house and love them. They come with hinges that are designed so you can lift the gate off and have your doorway free of the gate when you don't need it. They have really good reviews on Amazon and my experience with them has been very possitive. Most adults don't have any problems figuring out how to use them. My 2 1/2 year old knows how they work, but he doesn't have the hand strength to open the latch. You can buy them at Babies R Us locally.

It is really important that you actually buy one that is meant to be used at the top of the stairs. I found it was impossible to find a safe pressure mounted one for stairs. The problem is that the pressure mounted ones need at least one bar that crosses from one side to the other without interuption so that the pressure works to hold it into place. That bar is always at the bottom, so you can step over it. Also, the gap can't be too great or you compromise the pressure. As a result, what you get with pressure mounted ones is a narrow gate area with a bar along the bottom. It just isn't safe.

If you do go with pet gates, one word of advice: make sure you get ones with bars and not diamonds. Kids figure out pretty quickly that the diamonds give them good footholds. (My nephew taught me that one!)

Good luck!

We have a Graco with wood slats, extra high. Works great for us.

i can't recommend a particular brand however my neighbor used zip ties to attach his gate to the wooden railings so he wouldn't have to make holes in it. it's really sturdy too.

I have one that is cherry wood by Kolfraft. I like it a lot.