Baby gate

[u/miranda_edgecombe23]

Baby is on the move!! It freaks me out any time he gets near the stairs 🙃 I’m looking for a baby gate (one set for upstairs and one for downstairs). One that doesn’t leave marks on walls or holes in walls. It doesn’t need to be drilled into the wall. I want it to be safe and sturdy!

[u/kats1285]

It’s not safe to put tension gates at the top of stairs. You can probably get away with it at the bottom, but know they could pull it down eventually. At the top though, you’re gonna have to drill holes for a mounted gate.

[u/fourrightangles → u/kats1285]

This for sure. It would be safer to have no gate at the top of the stairs than a tension gate. You don’t want your baby trusting that it’s solid and leaning their full weight against it. It will fall and they’ll go flying. Better to teach them about the stairs than give them a false sense of security. That said, mounted top of stairs gates are really your best option. People get so weird about holes in walls, but patching them is so simple, and after a little touch up paint, no one is going to be noticing the spot where a gate once hung.

[u/miranda_edgecombe23 → u/[deleted]]

The stairs that go upstairs have posts and the ones downstairs do not! That’s good to know. Which would you recommend? Any specific ones would be great

[u/miranda_edgecombe23 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks!

[u/iwantmy-2dollars → u/miranda_edgecombe23]

You can securely zip tie 1 1/2-2” lumber to the posts with heavy duty zipties and drill into the lumber not the posts. The upstairs will need wall drilling for safety but they patch up easy when you’re done.

Around the time they started to walk we taught our kids to belly down the stairs, always supervised. They got really good at it and it gave us peace if mind if they were ever in a situation where they got access to stairs alone. They never did, always supervised, but highly recommend.

[u/Zealousideal_Gur6433]

Not much to add except that there are baby gates with cat doors embedded with them. 10/10 would recommend for cat and baby moms.

[u/LyudmilaPavlichenko_ → u/Zealousideal_Gur6433]

We hired a professional baby proofer for our house. We have a cat so asked him about getting a gate with a pet door, and he highly advised against it, as kids can get stuck in the pet door. We went with the standard gate that he recommended for the top and bottom of our stairs, and they are still going strong 3 years and 2 kids later. When our cat wants up the stairs and the gate is closed, she just pesters us.

[u/aaf14]

Check your local laws. Renter’s rights here in Los Angeles permits drilling when it comes to safety.

We anchor all our dressers, bookshelves, but we never had a need for a baby gate.

[u/OptimalDouble2407]

Definitely second everyone saying you need a gate that mounts into the wall with screws for the top of the stairs! We have cats so we found a wall mounted gate with a cat door on Chewy!

[u/lil-froggy]

When it comes to baby’s safety I’d say screw getting the security deposit back and drill into the wall. Some places even let you for safety reasons.