Has anyone not put a gate on their stairs?

JenK1108 · December 2012

We are having a horrible time finding a gate for both the bottom and top of our stairs. We have this weird handrail that is completely in the way for both hardware mount and pressure mounts, not to much round bannisters, which makes it more difficult.

Ethan is a crawler, sometimes in turbo mode, so I'm very nervous about not having gates. Curious if anyone has done without them, and how you made it work?

Jen0204 · December 2012

Instead of putting a gate at the bottom or top of the stairs can you put them on the first step up or down? If there's a gap in your railings you could always get a gate and have it against the wall on one side and through the railings on the other side and secure it will some stretchy cords. Not exactly ideal for when you have to go up and down, but better then nothing. Otherwise you could just gate off the access to the stairs.

lancyjo · December 2012

Jen0204:
Instead of putting a gate at the bottom or top of the stairs can you put them on the first step up or down? If there's a gap in your railings you could always get a gate and have it against the wall on one side and through the railings on the other side and secure it will some stretchy cords. Not exactly ideal for when you have to go up and down, but better then nothing. Otherwise you could just gate off the access to the stairs.

This is what I would do.

ALane1128 · December 2012

We haven't. We have extremely odd shaped railings/posts and nothing is working. And we have no way to block off the stairs in general. We just are extremely watchful of him when he's playing around that area.

Lena122 · December 2012

We've gated off access to the foyer where the bottom of the stairs are. We put a gate in the hallway at the top of the stairs. It's not right at the top of the stairs but close to it.

JenK1108 · December 2012

Thanks ladies.... Our stairs at top and bottom are dual banniesters, so that's part of our dilemma - we have no wall to attach anything to, just round spindles on both sides. I may have to do a gate in the hallway upstairs before the stairs, - annoying, but may be the only option.

dmsny · December 2012

Lena122:
We've gated off access to the foyer where the bottom of the stairs are. We put a gate in the hallway at the top of the stairs. It's not right at the top of the stairs but close to it.

We did this too because we have weird banisters as well.

Sept07b2b · December 2012

We have the same problem, so we bought a banister conversion kit, similar to the one below. I guess they don't make the one we have anymore, but it was essentially a piece of wood that you can hardmount the gate to, and then a series of those cable ties, so you can tie the piece of wood to the banister.

We've had it for over 2 years for my ODS, and it's worked great. I imagine the one below would work well too, and if you can't get the piece of wood attached to the banister right, you could opt to use cable ties, which you can buy almost anywhere.

We don't have a gate for the bottom of the stairs. It's easier in our downstairs to just put a pressure mounted gate in the hallway that leads to the staircase.

https://www.target.com/p/kidco-stairway-gate-installation-kit/-/A-10650624

ETA: we bought two, since we also have dual banisters. They do make dual banister conversion kits too.

NM86 · December 2012

We had the same issue...no wall and two banisters on either side.

Since our banisters were square, we just found an extra tall gate and attached the gate one step up and mounted it directly to the banisters.

It has a door so it's easy for adults to use it. Been great so far, even with DS always banging on it lol.

nickert2000 · December 2012

We have not yet...but are going to have to. For our older kids we where in a different house and it was easy to use a tension one. These stairs are different...I saw this idea and pinned it to do

Sept07b2b · December 2012

nickert2000:
We have not yet...but are going to have to. For our older kids we where in a different house and it was easy to use a tension one. These stairs are different...I saw this idea and pinned it to do

This is exactly what I was talking about!

JenK1108 · December 2012

nickert2000:
We have not yet...but are going to have to. For our older kids we where in a different house and it was easy to use a tension one. These stairs are different...I saw this idea and pinned it to do

I think this is our exact staircase, minus the white color! I love this idea, thanks for sharing it. I think this may be our answer!

sunnyday016 · December 2012

ALane1128:
We haven't. We have extremely odd shaped railings/posts and nothing is working. And we have no way to block off the stairs in general. We just are extremely watchful of him when he's playing around that area.

This is our situation too. DH recently just found a board in the basement (it was a train board of his from when he was young). It's like 4'X3'. We've been sliding it between the banister to block the stairs and it works. It's hard for anyone else to get over it, but we can deal with that. What we can't deal with is chasing him up & off the stairs 100 times per day like we were doing!

NY-allie · December 2012

We never bothered with a top gate with either DS and now with DD. When-ever we were upstairs I just shut the door of what-ever room we are in. By the time your kid learns how to open the door they'll know how to go down stairs.

Also we taught DS how to go down stairs safely at a fairly young age. That way if they are somewhere without a gate they won't fall down and hurt themselves.

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Has anyone not put a gate on their stairs?

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