Gates

I absolutely love our Retract-a-gate. It's a little pricey, but well worth it. It's sturdy and you can order extra mounting brackets to move the gate around (top of the stairs, outside deck stairs). I highly, highly, highly recommend this gate. I've been through a lot of gates and none of them were as good as this gate is (at least, IMHO). The company is also very local, so you get your gate the day after it ships.

It's a quiet retraction and you can easily work it with one hand. My 5 year old can work it easily, but unless they can reach the top of the gate, they will not be able to work it. It's very quiet...a neutral color...and just a great gate! It is very easily movable. You simply pop it off and move it (you do have to have other brackets installed at whatever other location you are moving it to).

If you do cannot mount the gate to the banister, you can get a post and have it securely strapped to the banister and mount the brackets to that. It's what we did and it's been up for 3 months now and we've not had any problems at all.

Have I mentioned how much I love this gate? ;)

http://www.retract-a-gate.com

2 moms found this helpful

We have the First Years Swing Gate as well and attached pieces of 2x2 wood to the banisters with zip ties and then attached the gate directly to the wood. That way your banisters are not ruined with screw holes and the wood can be easily removed. The swing gate is so easy and now my daughter closes it when she comes upstairs.

1 mom found this helpful

Hi! I am mom to boy/girl twins as well :)

We first bought a retractable gate and found that it wasn't very safe/sturdy for the top of the stairs. And also from what I read, retractable gates are recommended for top of stairs. What we did was just buy a wooden swing-open wall-mounted gate. I can't recall the brand off the top of my head but we purchased it at Babies R Us for around $40. To save our banisters, we did buy two kits. However, we still needed to add two additional pieces of wood (top and bottom) in order to secure a good fit. It ended up taking my husband a couple of hours to ensure that it was mounted properly but we have had to problems. If your stairwell is more at an angle, visit One Step Ahead or Baby Center/etc. They sell top of stairs gates that work for angle mounts onto banisters. Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

Hello everyone!
As far as gates go, my husband and I swear by the one we have at the top of our steep stair case. It is the Eddie Bauer wood gate. It mounts to the doorway/walls/bannister and is extremely durable. My daughter is 15 month old and sometimes grabs onto it and shakes it and it doesn't budge! Though we don't encourage that behavior, we feel extrememly confident in the safety this gates provides our little one.
Best of luck in your search!
J.
PS We found the gate at Babies R Us
We also have the retractable gates in a few doorways (and love them) but I wouldn't recommend them at the top of a staircase. Just my opinion.

We had the same problem where we have banisters on both sides and we bought the $79 kidco gates from Babies R Us because you can adjust them to different lengths because the bottom part of one of the banisters has molding so its not flush with the top and I love our gate because you can do this. You can mount them to the banisters or pressure mount them and my 15 month old can not budge the gate that is pressure mounted and she is strong. We had to buy the additional pieces though because the gate was not wide enough so measure before you go there. Let me know if you have any questions. J.

Hi we have a similar situation. We got a 3 piece sectional gate that makes almost a u shape and anchored to to the railing with those plastic zip ties. Works like a charm. Also gives you a little room at the top to navigate the gate instead of standing on the top stair to navigate it.

Hi B.,

We have the Kidco, center white, that mounts and have not had any problems. You can also buy from Kidco an attachment piece for stairs with wood rails. Good luck

Jen

Hi I had teh same problem, I tought him how to clime the stairs and we did it everyday on his tummy up and down I also bought a gate from babyrus but it is stuck with vacuum so it is not install but it keeps him away from it. if you teach them how to clim with very strick voice , always cose to the wall, never rush, always on tummy they begin to learn it and you can use it as a play time before bed so they get so tired to up-down.

I agree with Angela A (Hi Angela!). I have the retract a gate and love it!! I have had it now for about 14 months and it is at the top of our stairs. It works great, and I love that it doesn't open to one side or the other to block part of the walkway. It just retracts into itself, very easily. There are some other versions of retractable gates that I have read are not as good. So, stick with retract-a-gate. It is worth the money in my opinion.

Hi B.!

I am a mom of fraternal twin girls - now 2 and a half. We bought the retractable gate from kiddyguard and LOVE it! It's a little expensive but well worth the comfort of knowing they are safe. We also have an open stair with banister at the top. On the Target.com website, it states in the description that it is approved for the top of the stairs. We saved some money and instead of buying the extra baseboard kit, made our own wood pieces so that it would fit nicely with the baseboard on the wall. A little paint and it blends right in with the unit. I love the retractable feature but some may think that it is a little loud if you don't hold the button down while retracting.

Even though the girls walk up and down the stairs really well now, we still use the gates to keep them in our sights. We bought two at Target.com for the top and bottom of the stairs.
http://www.target.com/KiddyGuard-Gate/dp/B00009SS6B/ref=s...#

Congratulations on the twins! It's always great to talk to another mom of multiples. Let me know if you have any questions about the gate ...or just want to talk about the twins!

K.

We can't put gates exactly at the top/bottom of the stairs due to open banisters. We put the upstairs one about 5 feet back from the stairs, in the hallway, where there's 2 solid walls on each side. That might work for your house.

We have a First Years See Through Gate that attaches to the wall and it has been great. We got it at BRU. It is made of white plastic and the center is plexiglass.

Just a word of caution about retractable gates - if you have a little monkey on your hands, like we do, be careful. My daughter tries to climb the gate and a soft retractable gate would be very dangerous, especially above the stairs. The gate we have works well for a climber because there are no rails to grab onto.

Good Luck and I hope you find one that works for you