Our house is an obstacle course!

vigurl · May 2012

We have not one, not two, not even three but FOUR baby gates up! Yes they are all needed. Anyone else have that many? Any BTDT moms can tell me about what age can I chuck the gates?

cvl105 · May 2012

What are the gates for? stairs?

I don't plan on using gates...but that could change once she's trying to climb up/down stairs. She hasn't attempted them yet. I'm hoping once she does, I can try and teach her to do it safely so I don't need them.

Other than that, if I need to keep her out of somewhere, I just put her in her playpen.

dannie2011 · May 2012

We have 3 and a makeshift gate made out of boxes for one spot. The smaller gates aren't so bad it is the bigger gate that is a pain. I can't remember when I took the gates down with my older kids. I remember it wasn't too long after they learned to walk, stairs were mastered pretty soon after that. Heck they could go up before they could even walk but down was after they started walking. I taught them to go down on their bums.

vigurl · May 2012

I have 1 at each entrance to the kitchen and one at the top of the stairs and one at the bottom. LO climed up 6 stairs and made it to the landing on mother day when none of us were paying attention.

It scared the $h!t out of me and I made DH get the 2 gates up stat.

Telly21182 · May 2012

Right now we have two, but we're getting another one for the bottom of the basement steps, and considering a 4th for the entry to the kitchen. I feel perfectly safe with Ty crawling around and playing in the living room/hallway while I'm doing something in the kitchen, but he tends to end up in the kitchen, trying to play with the stove... when it's on and HOT! I'd feel so much better if I had the kitchen blocked off. I wouldn't leave him in the living room for an extended amount of time, but while I'm preheating the oven and chopping stuff I would be fine. We also have an opening window between the kitchen and living room so I can very easily look in and check in on him if I couldn't hear, or tell what he was getting in to.

As for the gates we now have... one is at the top of the stairs in our kitchen in to the basement. The other is in front of the office, which also has the litter box. We can't close that door otherwise the cats can't do their business, and the last thing I need is Ty thinking the litter box is a toy or worse off, food. He already has an obsession with the cat food. Another reason I want a gate blocking off the kitchen. He LOVES their food.

ETA: Ty can climb up and down stairs, but we definitely don't want him doing that without us around! I will plan on leaving the one on top of the steps for quiet awhile. It was a b**ch to put up so it's staying there!! Thankfully it's easy to use!

amberpro · May 2012

We have one up blocking the kitchen. He's a pretty good listener when it comes to "no", but if I'm not expressly paying attention, he's shoveling the dog food in his mouth and dumping over the dog's water dish. I need to be able to leave the room.

We fold the gate up when he goes to bed, but I usually put it back up when he wakes up. Well, he noticed I missed it yesterday. I set him down with me int he back of the house, and it's like he remembered from walking through the kitchen with me. I turned around, and he was gone! I stepped out of my door and found him running- yes running!- to the dog dish, lol!!

SarahKate31 · May 2012

We have 2 set up regularly. One is at the top of the basement stairs and one blocks off a powder room where the cats' litter box is. We also have a make-shift "gate" made out of dining room chairs to block him away from another set of stairs and the kitchen. At some point, we will move those chairs and put a gate up at the stairs (we have a 3rd one that is not usually used).

M&M227 · May 2012

We have two kind of cheap ones that someone gave us. I think we'll use them to keep her in the living room if necessary. We need to get better ones for the bottom and top of the stairs and I plan to get nice ones for there, I don't want any chance of her falling.

LaRue86 · May 2012

I have 4 and they are all for stairs. I am guessing about 2 years is the age in which we wont need them for Avery anymore, but with 2.0 on the way, it will be closer to three years from now. My dad thought it would be a good idea to teach him how to play on the stairs (climb up and slide down)...he tries to do it on his own, so the gates are just easier.

march2008 · May 2012

We have 2 gates. One is to keep our 2 cats out of her room because I am mildly allergic to them (but I love them!) and just in case DD is too, I don't want them in her crib getting it all hairy.

The other gate is a pet gate that has a small opening for the cats at the bottom and it's to keep DD out of the area where I have the cats' litter box and food and water bowls. She kept following them over to those areas and it got old really fast trying to keep her out.

mesr · May 2012

when dd1 was this age, we had four full-time gates (basement steps, back room with cat litter box, master bedroom, dd1's bedroom) as well as other gates we sometimes put up. it was miserable jumping over all of them. at one point i tripped over one of the gates and fell hard on my chest. i was in pain for weeks; i think i broke or bruised several ribs.

eventually we were able to take the gates down. i think by 18 months. now with dd2, we have just one full-time gate (back room with litter box) and keep the door to the basement steps closed. although it would be nice to pen her in as much as we did for dd1, now dd1 needs to be able to travel throughout the house, so we just have to be watchful and hope dd2 doesn't get into too much trouble.

maddiemoon43 · May 2012

We have 4 that are specifically for stairs and then one cheap one that we'll move around the house as needed. Some days I use the extra one for his room if I need to run and do something in our room and don't want to deal with him getting into stuff (his room is baby-proofed, our room is not). Today I used it in the middle of our front hall/foyer when I wasn't done with the vacuum before he woke from his nap. I didn't want to drag the central vac hose and attachments back to the basement only to bring them up 3 hours later to finish, but I didn't want him knocking it over or chewing on it either.

A few weeks ago we thought the one to the basement stairs was closed and he fell down half a flight (thankfully carpeted - and he charmed the staff at the ER...not even a scratch!)

kas80 · May 2012

We have two up. One to block of the kitchen/basement stairs and one blocking the stairs upstairs. She knows how to get up and down the stairs safely (she goes down backwards, feet first) but it still makes me nervous to not be right there when she does it.

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