The best baby gates for stairs??

[urouj862]

We're moving to a house soon and we'll have stairs , so we need to buy baby gates suitable for stairs ASAP! I've never bought them because either they were already there or we didnt need them.

Pleaseeee shine some light on baby gates. Our youngest is 1 year old.

Thanks in advance!

[Zonny]

You'll need one that screws into the wall, don't use a pressure mounted one.

[sarajen]

We have an Evenflo Secure Step. It's ok but there is a little piece on the bottom that prevents the gate from swinging the other way that tends to twist and have to be put back into place. It's a pain but we just deal with it as I've read lots of review on gates and I never found one that was really great.

[oddduck]

We had this one with our first.

http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index....ductId=3822521

I liked it well enough, easy to get it installed securely -- pretty easy to operate.

We have another gate now (it's a wider opening) and I hate it. The it's hard to operate (HOOKS) and hard to even get on the metal guides.

[anisa]

they absolutely must screw into the wall or banisters.

we got this, and i really love it. it is sturdy and can be expanded to fit an extra wide opening. they are expensive tho!! the extension is actually an extra piece you purchase seperatly. it is easy to open, and is a very simple but functional and sturdy design. the bars are metal.

http://www.kidco.com/main.taf?erube_...=2&kidco.bc=gc

you can find them at baby stores.

i bought mine off of kijiji. they sell fast though.

[urouj862]

@ zonny- yeah thats true, i have one of those for my kitchen - cant imagine using it for the stairs

@sarajen - one of the first things i did was google reviews and to my suprise didnt see a gate with incredible reviews either ! maybe people just dont review them, because i know i've seen great ones but dont remember the names.

@oddduck - i like this one! not that pricey either, i'm def going to write down the name/model and check it out in person . Can it be used both on the bottom and the top?? It has great reviews on the toysrus site, but one of reviews say it was recalled and the newer model isnt perfect either.... SEE 18 good reviews and 1 bad one ruins it lol, i'll check to see if the recall it right or not.

@anisa - yeah the kidco ones are pretty pricey, but look so sturdy and reliable, i'm going to keep and eye out for them on kiji. But i need 2 -for top and bottom of the stairs what are the chances there will be 2 for sale at the same time (fingers crossed).

I have yet to measure the width of the stairs - I hope they arent the oddly "too wide" for normal gates kind of stairs. I'll be going to measure everything on the 5th of july *cant wait*!!

i'm going to keep the kidco ones and Evenflo Top of Stair Plus Gate in mind, i'll save me the hours of wandering the aisles at toyrus .

[Insane]

The gate at the top of the stairs needs to be the sturdiest one. The bottom one doesn't need to be as sturdy since if it falls, they aren't then falling down the stairs.

[oddduck]

@oddduck - i like this one! not that pricey either, i'm def going to write down the name/model and check it out in person . Can it be used both on the bottom and the top?? It has great reviews on the toysrus site, but one of reviews say it was recalled and the newer model isnt perfect either.... SEE 18 good reviews and 1 bad one ruins it lol, i'll check to see if the recall it right or not.

We only used it at the top of stairs (2 sets), but yes -- it could be used at both sides. We barricaded the bottom with our first. I'm personally more worried about falling down the stairs rather then climbing up.

The recall was over a year ago, and it was due to the slats breaking. TRU won't sell recalled (in theory), so you're safe (unless you buy 2nd hand of course)

http://safety.evenflo.com/cs/sc/cssc...=EFR28&src=WEB

[GoddessDigi]

Oh, but what if they climb up and then fall down? ._.
That's what I'm always worried about...
Sorry, just wanted to put that out there..I think both need to be pretty sturdy...

[oddduck]

Oh, but what if they climb up and then fall down? ._.
That's what I'm always worried about...
Sorry, just wanted to put that out there..I think both need to be pretty sturdy...

At our last house we just put up 3-4 jugs of water (like the 15-20L ones). We did it that way for like easily 6 months to a year. Low enough for adults to step over, but our daughter couldn't get around them or move them. We had no option for a gate there as they were open stairs with no where to attach... found a picture.

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y46...IMG_0778-1.jpg

That is what we ended up doing after out LO started to play with all the electronics.

[kat7610]

I agree with the screwed to the wall or banister ones. Also, the gates I always used swung both ways so that you never had to pull the gate towards yourself going up or down if you had your hands full. I just found this safer.

[urouj862]

We only used it at the top of stairs (2 sets), but yes -- it could be used at both sides. We barricaded the bottom with our first. I'm personally more worried about falling down the stairs rather then climbing up.

The recall was over a year ago, and it was due to the slats breaking. TRU won't sell recalled (in theory), so you're safe (unless you buy 2nd hand of course)

http://safety.evenflo.com/cs/sc/cssc...=EFR28&src=WEB

Yeah i check up on the recall too, the model number for sale is dif from the one that got recalled. I think we'll go with this one, the others are just too pricey for us right now. i found awesome reviews on viewpoint.com for this gate too.

thanks!

[urouj862]

the barracading the bottom is a good idea, but when i thought about doing it at our house (with 3 other kids running aged 6,4 and 2 ) it just cant happen, i'm afraid one of the sisters would go running upstairs without putting the barricade back up, i'd always be stressed to check if they put the barricade back up or not. But if i had the only one child, that wouldnt be a bad idea.

[ummali]

The one we used with our first two was this:
http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index....ductId=3822454

Back then there was no alarm so I thought that was a cool feature. we used to live in a house where you would walk up stairs to the living room so this was great since we had 2 of them. one in the living room stairs that lead to the front door and another upstairs.
We got rid of them as we thought we would not need gates anymore and moved to our current home. when we moved in the previous owners left these ones:
http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index....ductId=3822521
the come off easy and we never got around to removing the hardware and surprise we now how a little one and can use these. They are not as easy to open and close as the safety first ones and are kind of a pain when you have a baby in arms but at least we dont have to purchase and install new gates.
If you have a choice which ones to go for, I would highly recommend the safety first one for ease of use especially if this will be a high traffic area and you will be trying to open a gate with baby in arms.
Good luck with gate hunting and your mobile baby!

[ummali]

We only used it at the top of stairs (2 sets), but yes -- it could be used at both sides. We barricaded the bottom with our first. I'm personally more worried about falling down the stairs rather then climbing up.

The recall was over a year ago, and it was due to the slats breaking. TRU won't sell recalled (in theory), so you're safe (unless you buy 2nd hand of course)

http://safety.evenflo.com/cs/sc/cssc...=EFR28&src=WEB

Thank you for this information about the gates. Thankfully our model is not the one in the recall.