Baby gates in a row house?

[Anonymous]

Our baby started crawling, so we need to do something about the stairs in our very old row house.

2 questions...

First, do we need a gate at the top and bottom of every staircase? We have three sets of stairs (including stairs down to the basement, which we use for TV watching)? Or just the tops of the stairs?

Second, how do we work around these really old bannisters and moldings? We really don't want to drill into the bannister.

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

[Anonymous]

We did top and bottom- if they can go up- they can go down. We had the same old house problem. We asked our handy man to custom make gates for us that would preserve the banisters as much as possible. We painted them to match and they have been great.

[Anonymous]

www.retract-a-gate.com (I think) is where we bought gates. Pricey but totally worth it, and it fits onto nearly any type of railing/staircase situation. We have two flights of stairs and have a gate at the top of both and one at the bottom of the staircase on the main floor. There is a door in the basement near the bottom of the stairs that can be closed/locked in lieu of a gate. I personally think that gates are a necessity, especially if you utilize your whole house during the course of the day and you have more than one child.

[Anonymous]

We have two sets of stairs in our DC rowhouse. On one set we have a gate top and bottom. The other set is only top (leads into the basement, we don't spend much time down there.) The top gates are screw-mounted (better to have holes in your banister than holes in baby's head!), the bottom gate (Kidco Gateway) is pressure mounted. All are by Kidco and are adjustable for mouldings, uneven walls, etc. Couldn't recommend them more.

[Anonymous]

Ditto the retract-a-gate recommendation. Pricey, but portable. You have the option of installing extra bracket sets so that you can move the gate to where you need it. We bought two gates and two extra bracket sets and were able to cover two staircases top and bottom. YMMV depending on how your living space is laid out and how you use it, but it worked well for us.

[Anonymous]

There are "gate installation kits" that will allow you to avoid drilling into the banister.

http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1&parentCategoryId=85183&categoryId=85217

As far as how many gates you'll need, I think it depends on how you use your house. I have a 4 story townhouse. The baby is never on the 4th floor of the house (office), so we didn't put a gate there. On the 3rd floor, we didn't do a gate going up (we just keep a close eye on him), but did put a gate going down. On the 2nd floor of the house (main living area, including kitchen), we put gates on both up and down. Didn't put a gate on the 1st floor -- again, baby is rarely down there.

So that was 3 gates for me, plus I do have a pressure-mount, portable gate for the times I want to confine him to his room or my bedroom.

GL!

[Anonymous]

I did permanent gates at tops of stairways. My basement staircase had a true door so I didn't worry about that. I used pressure mounted ones at the bottoms of staircases when we were downstairs.

[Anonymous]

We use this Safety 1st brand, because it molds to uneven, weird-shaped banisters, which we have all over our townhouse.
http://www.safety1st.com/usa/eng/Products/Home-Safety/Gates/Details/448-41824-Perfect-Fit-Gate
I love it. It's very easy to use.

[Anonymous]

We did top and bottom and put a hook and eye on the door to the basement (we don't want to learn the hard way that our son has learned to turn door knobs!!).

there are companies that can figure this all out for you too. we had a company come and do our bottom gate because we couldn't quite figure it out. we sent photos by email of the area where we needed the gate, gave them measurements over the phone, and they installed a gate in 20 minutes. pricey BUT SO WORTH IT!!!

[Anonymous]

I think you need to protect either the top or bottom of a staircase if it is on a level that your child will be crawling around. So if for example, you have a stairway down to the garage, you only need to secure the upstairs because the baby is not going to be crawling around in the garage.

You can use pressure gates at the bottom of steps. For top of the staircase, you need a more secure solution. To anchor it to a banister without drilling, I like the Kidco mount K12: http://www.kidco.com/main.taf?erube_fh=kidco&kidco.submit.gateDetails=1&kidco.modelNumber=K12&kidco.bc=gc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are "gate installation kits" that will allow you to avoid drilling into the banister.

http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1&parentCategoryId=85183&categoryId=85217

As far as how many gates you'll need, I think it depends on how you use your house. I have a 4 story townhouse. The baby is never on the 4th floor of the house (office), so we didn't put a gate there. On the 3rd floor, we didn't do a gate going up (we just keep a close eye on him), but did put a gate going down. On the 2nd floor of the house (main living area, including kitchen), we put gates on both up and down. Didn't put a gate on the 1st floor -- again, baby is rarely down there.

So that was 3 gates for me, plus I do have a pressure-mount, portable gate for the times I want to confine him to his room or my bedroom.

GL!

This is exactly what we did for our 4 story townhouse. Only gated the floors where the baby is, and we used the same gate installation kits from One Step Ahead. It required four separate gates (expensive), but it works well.

[Anonymous]

We only do top of stairs. We keep an eye on our son, so if he starts climbing up the stairs we grab him (or follow him); but if he tottered towards the top of the staircase and fell down, we might not get there in time. We also taught him how to back himself down the stairs, so he can come down without having to turn around; and even if he's facing down the stairs, he knows how to turn himself around to go down. We also have turning stairs, though, so there's a landing after the first three steps, and another after the next two steps, so even if he climbed up to the first or second landing, he wouldn't really get hurt falling down. If we had one big flight, or uncarpeted stairs, or if he couldn't back himself down, we might be more likely to put one at the bottom of the stairs, too.

We drilled holes into our bannister b/c the pressure-mounted gates can be pushed down. We use a First Steps one that adjusts to uneven surfaces and adjusts width (it's similar to the Safety First one that was recommended by a PP, but it has gotten better reviews on Amazon and is a little more expensive). It also swivels, so that sometimes we open it up, adjust the width, and use it as a pressure gate to enclose DS in the living room. That works well, but he uses his little fingers to pry the pressure knobs out and push them, which reinforces for us the importance of not using pressure gates at the top of the stairs.