fyi: retractable baby gate

Renee070806 · June 2009

i have been trying to find a retractable gate for the bottom of our stairs and none of them are wide enough (47"). i did find one at bru but it has been out of stock for quite some time..
i just came across this one and wanted to share. its cheaper than bru as well.

https://www.retract-a-gate.com/index.html

MI-bride · June 2009

Where's the pricing on that?

MI-bride · June 2009

Nevermind, i can read!

costfords · June 2009

My friend has that, and PIA is the nice way to describe it. You need two hands to open and close it. This means, that you can't carry your baby and go up or down the stairs. I was so glad we were only at her house for a few days. If I had that, I probably would have ripped it out of the wall and beat it against the crub until it shattered. I LOATHED it.

Renee070806 · June 2009

really? im at such a loss..
we have a wide stair case that is also uneven (the wall extends beyond the bannister). the other issue is that where the bannister isnt round and you can attach a gate to it is not lined up with th wall in a spot where you can attach the other piece of the gate (hand rail and high molding). its pretty but such a pain!!!
i dont know what else to do? we have a pretty open floor plan and there isnt anything across from the stairs to attach a gate to..the only thing close enough is our wide front door...

KatieLG04 · June 2009

We've had ours a couple of weeks and are managing fine with it. It takes some getting used to, but I can open it holding the baby if I have DS on the hip next to the safety release so I can push the button with my arm around him and then use my other hand to open/close the gate. We had no other option either, so you do what you have to.

MrsGo4Hockeychick · June 2009

We have this gate. LOVE it! And I can very easily open and close it while holding Kennedy. One of our stairways is really wide, we actually use this one to block off two stairways with one gate!

bim38106 · June 2009

Have you checked onestepahead.com? We also have wide stairway openings (46-50something, depending) and got our top of stairs gates from there. We ended up buying an attachment thing (kidco I think) for the banister so it's even and we don't have to drill into the wood. They also have wide gates for uneven areas. We got the hardwood furniture gate and it looks like it's a part of the house railings.. it looks awesome and blends right in! I love it

costfords · June 2009

Sorry, I didn't mean to write a horrible review on this and leave.

The reason why I hated this so much was because to unhook it, you needed to loosen the slack on it, so you had to push the safety button down and pull the gate out a bit. Then, you had to hold the gate with the extra slack so that you could unhook it from the wall. Many times, this took either two people or two hands and a foot. And the worst parts were that it "clacked" as it retracted and that you had to hold the gate so it retracted flat and didn't fling out and hit you. How Mrs4Hockeygirl does all this with one hand and still holding a baby, I have no idea.

A retractable gate sounds great, I just haven't ever seen one that wasn't a PIA. Plus, dd loves to hang off gates and it would just scare me when she tried it with this gate.

There are many gates at BRU that fit what you are looking for. They won't come in one box, but there are attachments to many of the gates that will allow for a large opening and spindles on a banister. I have also seen some girls on here use fireplace screens as baby gates. GL!

Shell24 · June 2009

bim38106:
Have you checked onestepahead.com? We also have wide stairway openings (46-50something, depending) and got our top of stairs gates from there. We ended up buying an attachment thing (kidco I think) for the banister so it's even and we don't have to drill into the wood. They also have wide gates for uneven areas. We got the hardwood furniture gate and it looks like it's a part of the house railings.. it looks awesome and blends right in! I love it

My SIL has the one step ahead retractable gate. You do need 2 hands to do it, but I have also done it while holding my DD or my nephew. I don't know that I would use it at the top of the stairs, but it's great for the bottom!

MrsGo4Hockeychick · June 2009

ok, it's really not hard. there's a knob on the top of the end that has the roll. You lock it when the gate is pulled across, and unlock it to retract the gate. There is no need to pull on the gate to lock or unlock it.

To retract it, I unlock it, walk over to the hooks, and unhook it (and yes, this can be done one handed) and hold it gently while it rolls up. Heck, I've accidentally let go of it, and yes, it snaps back fast...but as long as no one is standing right there, there's no harm in it. I do sometimes have to push the bottom part out with my foot, but this is only because our trim sticks out a little far. We're going to order extenders they sell for between the hooks and the wall for this purpose, then it will be easy peasy to open and close.

Sometimes I'll only hook the top hook closed and lock it if I'm holding her. Our carpeting helps hold the bottom part, and right now she can't move it enough to fit underneath.

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