Baby Safety Gates

My 7 month old baby boy is starting to get a little bit mobile so we’ve decided it’s time for stair gates. To be honest, I’ve been putting it off because we seem to have a really awkward house.

For the stairs, we need extra wide gates and, preferably, with no bar along the bottom. I’ve been researching and have found one which is screwed into one wall but pressure fit to the other which does not have a bar. This sounds perfect for the bottom of the stair but I have 1 concern…. how can one side be pressure fit if there is no bar? surely the pressure fit side would need something against it to apply the pressure?

For the top of the stairs we need a pressure fit gate as we have spindles on the bannister and I need the Y shaped adaptors so again, the above gate would be great if I could be sure that the pressure fit would work.

Does anyone have one of these gates? If so, where did you get it and how does it work?

Thankyou in advance for your answers
I would change the spindles if I could but being on £123 a week for 9 months and, since the new PM has decided to increase VAT and reduce my tax credits, I’m trying to avoid that if I can!

Hi, we had similar problems in our house, needed 3 gates and ended up having to get a dog gate for one of the staircases, anyway…ours screw both sides and don’t have trip bars, they’re wooden ones by Lindam.

My main advice would be to be wary of pressure gates, we used to have one but it fell off suddenly in the middle of the night (after months of being fine), my friend’s one came off at the top of the stairs when her toddler jumped against it – cue one 2 year old in hospital with an arm broken in 3 places and a shattered cheekbone. Nasty. I do know others that use them just fine but screw them in properly if you can find a way!

These twins are 9 months old, at the just about to start walking stage (if they hadnt already). Regardless, there would have been child-safety gates at the top and bottom of the stairs (since its already been reported that the children were sleeping UPSTAIRS).

Now you may argue that they left both of these gates open because the children were asleep, however I know that just out of habit, for my own peace of mind, even if my kid was asleep, I would close the gates behind me. Why? Because it takes all of two seconds, and in the unlikely event they did get out of the cot, at the very least they would only be on one level, not crawl/walk to the top of the stairs and then fall down. Plus its just a force of habit, you just get in the habit of always closing the gates, so that you dont accidentally ‘forget’ to do it one day with disasterous consequences.

So one of two things happened here:

The child gates were locked and somehow this fox managed to jump over both sets of gates (at the top and the bottom) without making a single sound (and how determined is that fox to get to some soiled nappies to be able to do that).

or the gates were open, which might be fine, but still seems to me to be playing a little fast and loose with their safety considering there is a 5 or 6 metre drop awaiting them ….
La Volpe – I totally agree with you on the count of all these neighbours all declaring it to be some epidemic, yet if that was the case why did the parents leave the door wide open and then leave both child safety gates open to allow the fox to get upstairs.

This would make them negligent. They can’t have it both ways. Either they were negligent because they knew there was a problem but did nothing to prevent the attack, or there was no problem in the first place which is why they never forsaw it.

But they can’t have it both ways.
Nice guy ………. babies don’t have to be at walking age to need babygates. Having one of your own, you should know how fast they can crawl along the ground at 9 months. Wouldnt take them long to get from one end of a room to the edge of the staircase.

A fox can jump very lightly. A gate would present very little obstacle. Foxes come over our six foot fences all the time. They’re very nimble and stealthy with it. The mistake people are making is thinking that foxes are nice – they’re not. They are renowned for causing terrible problems with lambs and chickens. They are vermin but some people think they’re cute, feed them and allow them to breed in their gardens. I wouldn’t breed rats but that’s what people do with foxes. There is no difference rat=vermin fox=vermin.

My daughter is 3 years old and stays with her grandparents one night a month. They have a very tall staircase that has wood, no carpeting, and her room is upstairs, while they sleep downstairs. My mother thinks our daughter is old enough to not use the gate at the top of the stairs any longer, but my husband and I are concerned that she’s still a little wobbly (especially after just having woken up) and there is a danger there. I’ve looked online for any info but would like some feedback from others who might have a similar situation. The thought of her falling scares me to death. How do you know when a child is old enough not to need safety gates?

When she can go up and down the stairs consistently by herself without falling, she’s old enough to not use the gates. My niece is 3 and every time my sister thinks she no longer needs the gates, she ends up falling down the stairs.