Stair Gates

decbuck

Is there a best brand to buy?
Do I need one at the bottom as well?

Davidth88

Don't know best brand , I just looked for the one that was easiest to put up. I got mine in B&Q , they work a treat.

YES YES YES YES you need one at the bottom as well as the top ...... your little one will see the stairs as a great adventure and will be climbing them faster than you can turn around. And whatever goes up has to ..... come down.

Don't forget to close them !

We made a game of getting her to close the gates , now whenever she sees them open she dashes over and closes them .

kelle

I have my own horror story. I forgot to close the bottom stairgate one day when my daughter was 9 months old and crawling. I had visitors, got absorbed in conversation, then called out my daughter's name. This startled her, I watched in horror as she fell down 2 steps of the stairs and banged her head on the ceramic tiles. She sustained a fractured skull. Thankfully, she was fine and is now a strapping 4 year old!
Agree with Davidth88!
My stairgates were bought in Mothercare

noby

I was going to suggest putting the bottom gate up a couple of steps, as we did, leaving one or two steps for our lad to climb. Reading kelle's post shows that even doing this requires you to be very watchful. Kelle, I'm glad she's ok again.

silverharp

The only time our little one fell down the stairs was when clever mama shouted as him from the top of the stairs and he turned around startled. Otherwise we had one on the top and none on the bottom, I think we had a phase for a couple of months where we used to leave a bean bag at the bottom of the stairs, and by the time he was able to get around it he was more steady on his feet. It was a type that folds like a blind so was quite neat

Davidth88

Hi,

As Noby suggests it's not a bad idea to leave 1/2 steps before the bottom gate. Indeed all the stairs I have seen you almost have to because the balastrade ( sp?) doesn't start until then

Perhaps if I had read kelle's post before fitting mine I would have thought twice. Our little one now likes to ' hide ' on the first step ... we were think this may be useful when she gets older if we start to deploy a naughty step

littlebug

We got timber gates (Argos IIRC). What I like about them is that they don't have the bit going across the bottom that some of the other gates do. I was thinking of grandparents tripping over them more so than the than children though.

And yes remember to close them. There have been a couple of tumbles here because stupid mommy forgot to close the gate. No injuries thankfully.

We've just removed our bottom gate but we'll keep the upstairs one for a while longer as my daughter occasionally sleepwalks.

Davidth88

Actually just thought of something.

Littlebug is right about the bar across the bottom , we have one at the top that has no bar and one at the bottom that does , it's surprising what a pain that bar is ! esp now little one is learning to come down the stairs on her bottom .

Also , when fitting be careful , it is very easy to make sh!t of the wall if its the usual plaster board , most of these gates use pressure to stay in place , don't go mad otherwise you can push the pressure pad through the wall then you are totally stuck !

( didn't happen to us because I had seen 2-3 other people do it before in their houses )

Check the gates every now and then because they can work loose and slip

loyatemu

we have gates at the top and the bottom. like littlebug we went with the type that screw into the wall rather than the pressure fit gates as we felt the bars across the bottom of the latter were a tripping hazard.

make sure if you are putting them up though that you get the right fittings for your wall. Theres a lot of weight going onto the side that is attached to the wall and I've had the screws pull out on a couple of occasions.

Despite all this both of our kids have managed to fall down the stairs (yes, from the top!) - the dangerous time is when they're learning to climb the stairs themselves and you have to open the gate for them. Thankfully on both occasions they got up and walked away afterwards - kids seem to be made of rubber.

littlebug

We attached a piece of timber to either side at the bottom (and top) of the stairs and then screwed the stair gate fittings into that, one screw each at the top and bottom of the timber, meaning there was minimal damage to the stair post thing and the wall.

Oryx

I dont have stair gates (I know, bad mammy) partly because our stairs is an odd fit and partly because we dont use the upper floor of the house often, bedrooms are all on the ground floor. I watch my little one when shes in the hall so she doesnt go up. The only time she fell was when she followed me up and her thoughtful big brother pushed her back down. :eek: I thought she was killed but thankfully theres a thick mat at the bottom and no harm done.

Apart from that the only one who fell down the stairs was me.:o

And Id go with screw in ones having seen both types in friends houses.

kelle

It's a consolation to know others forget to close the stairgate, I suppose we're all human at the end of the day. I'm still racked with guilt over what happened that day. I now have a 7-month-old and it will (hopefully) never happen to her. The mat or beanbag at the bottom of the stairs is a good idea.

luckat

I got one when my dog was a puppy - it was actually not a great one, not wood but metal tubing. If anyone wants it and is in Dublin, I still have it, though. (But the stickyish bits to stick to the walls are no longer sticky; you'd have to find something to stick them with.

It might do someone who wants a gate for the bottom of the stairs and one for the top - the metal one would do for the bottom and you could get a good wood one for the top.

PM me if you want it. I keep meaning to find a garage sale for the various bits I have lying around the house, but usually they make their way to charity shops.

expectationlost

looking into getting a stair gate at the grandparents house for occasional visits, so pressure mounted to be temporary but I don't think you can get pressure mounted one with no bottom lip/ trip hazard.

ectoraige

kelle wrote: »

It's a consolation to know others forget to close the stairgate, I suppose we're all human at the end of the day. I'm still racked with guilt over what happened that day. I now have a 7-month-old and it will (hopefully) never happen to her. The mat or beanbag at the bottom of the stairs is a good idea.

The only thing humans can be relied upon is to be unreliable. We have one at the bottom of the stairs, and also insist the doors to the hallway are kept closed. Our other two children are four and seven so there's a reasonable chance one of them will forget to close something.

I much prefer the wall mounted ones, I'd only consider the pressure ones for temporary jobs at the grandparents' houses. Don't skimp on the fittings though, I had to re-erect ours as our older children had great craic swinging on it until it began to come out of the wall.

We don't have one at the top of the stairs as the little one is usually only upstairs at bedtime. It is on my todo list though as he's starting to get more mobile so once he's able to start getting out of bed will need to have one upstairs. In other houses there was a return on the stairs so we just moved the bottom stairgate to the top when the children were of that age. Our staircase here though is straight up so definately want one at both ends.