Our daughter is 12 1/2 months old and we NEVER put a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, but did have one at the top of the stairs. She has, for the last month, been climbing up the stairs without us even watching her. Since she is so good at it, I don’t even fret about it. I would like to encourage her more often to go down the stairs on her stomach, but she seems disinterested in going down, though she will if we require her to. Still, I think not having a baby gate at the bottom rapidly increased her skill level, strength, and safety using the stairs and I think we are better off because we never had one. All of our neighbor’s with similar aged babies have them, and wonder why we don’t.
To clear up any confusion, my daughter has never had one at the bottom of the stairs, ever. She is 12.5 months old and why have a baby gate when you can just close your child’s door isntead? Much like my neighbor’s backyard fence they installed to trap their daughter, I think it’s easier and more useful to "teach them" as opposed to restricting them. We were the same with her walking, she was doing it at 10.5 months and now walks quickly and well without assistance.

She climbs up the stairs barefoot. My goal is for her to learn how to safely get down the stairs and I will supervise and work with her until she is confident in her abilities. We often times let her climb up the stairs unsupervised. My wife did not like at first, but she now agrees that my daughter can climb without our staring her down. Over protective neighbor’s and friends still think it’s crazy, but I think they are just lazy parents/teachers.
It’s not about convenience Brooke, it’s about teaching them and their practicing. No way do I agree that it’s more convenient NOT to have gates than to have them. That’s just ridiculous. Lazy parents have gates, engaging parents teach.
OK, I think the most frustrating part of the comments is people commenting that my daughter "can’t possibly" be able to do this on her own. Yet again this morning she did without fail. For the record, we do have carpet on our stairs so perhaps that is why I am comfortable with it. At 8 months, she held herself on a pull up bar during baby gym class, and at one year we saw her lift a bocci ball all on her own and those things are heavy. So, perhaps your problem is lack of practice, don’t fear your children, let them build their muscles instead.

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I have a 7 month old baby who is started to become mobile, he will be fully crawling in just a few weeks. our upstairs will be the play room area but our stair case is very wide, and a normal baby gate does not fit it, also our house is very colonial house and i dont think a plastic one would look so great, any suggestions where i would get one?

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I have been searching for an extra wide baby gate that is at least 100 inches wide. I have found some online at Target and Walmart, but they are all ones that you have to mount onto the wall. Do any of you happen to know of a gate that is this long that we don’t need to mount onto the wall?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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My little boy has discovered the stairs! Now I have a baby gate at the bottom and he is getting frustrated he can’t go up. Every 10 minutes he races to it thinking he will go up the stairs and then gets mad and screams by the gate. I pull him away and try to divert his attention and somehow he manages to go right back to them. How long will it take before he realizes he can’t go up their point blank?! Any suggestions Moms?

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So, I have been off and on thinking of a baby proof solution for my windows. I have a bit of time, maybe a few months before I really have to get serious about it. We live on the second story of a duplex.

They have screens but screens are not sufficient in safety. And we MUST have them open in the summer because we have no AC and it gets hot here.

We do not want to use the burglar bars on them. We feel they are a fire hazard because we only have one door going in and out of the house, if we are to block the windows with bars we could become trapped in an emergency.

I have not been able to find anything that will work.

We have several large and tall windows that are only about 1 1/2 to 2 feet off the floor. The largest ones span about 5-6 feet wide. The largest ones are in the living room. The smaller ones we are going to use the baby window guards. But they will not work on the ones that are about 6 feet wide. The windows are also very tall, we have vaulted ceilings and they go up to the top of the ceiling.

The windows have no ledges or ridge of any kind that I can use a baby gate in them and the baby proofing window guard is not long enough… They are close enough to the ground that when he is walking (which will be soon) he could reach them with no problem.

I thought about using mesh but will that hold well? How will I keep it on there? My son is a bruiser and very strong… If I were to try to put some mesh over the window I am certain he could rip them out.

I have heard about kids being killed falling out of windows and I just worry that they could be a hazzard.

Does anyone have any suggestions other than burglar bars? And I would use gates if I had a place to put them in to over the wondow but there is no ledge…

Any ideas? Thanks!

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We have a 2yr old. Our new house (here for 2 months) has stairs, we used the gates for a week and then she got so good on them, didnt think twice about not using it. Well, this weekend she took a tumble,she was not hurt, thank goodness to my husband being there to catch her, literally.

Should I just put the gates back up? Or just continue to monitor her on the stairs? Do you have a baby gate?

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Hello folks… I have a 6 y.o. black lab & bloodhound mix. He’s a GREAT dog…def the best dog I’ve ever had! He’s great with kids and people in general. BUT there’s 1 problem…
The problem, which just started recently in the past month or so, is that he gets into the trash and scatters it EVERYWHERE in the kitchen.
Here’s a little background:
He’s such a great dog when I’m home which is pretty much all the time other than when I’m working so he’s home alone for about 12 hours per day. He’s been on this same schedule for almost 2 years and I’ve NEVER had this or any other problems with him. He’s just a real chilled out dog! There was 1 time about a year ago when I left a plate on the kitchen counter and he got "stood up" on his 2 hind legs and punished it…gone before I could count to 3. So I decided to buy baby gates and put them up to block the 2 entrances to my kitchen. Everything was great until about a month ago when he broke down the baby gate and got in and ate all kinds of stuff that was in the trash. The trashcan is a taller one WITH A LID. What he does is knocks it over and it’s history…TRASH EVERYWHERE!!! I figured the gates would be good enough but obviously they’re not. He weighs 114 lbs and I guess goes through them with ease when he wants to.
I had just taken the trash out lsat night so the only things in there were some paper towels and other random garbage BUT NO FOOD! I bought 2 diff kinds of repellent and have tried both with no success. I sprayed the inside of the can as well as the inside of the trash bag hoping it would keep him away.
I really don’t want to move the can which would be the obvious solution…there’s pretty much nowhere else to put it. I’ve read about using a smaller can and putting it into a kitchen cabinet with child safety locks but like I said I’d rather not have to move the can or get a new smaller one to put in the cabinet.
My goal with this is to hopefully get some more new ideas of possible solutions…
Things to remember:
He weighs 114 lbs.
When he got into the trash last night there was NOT any food in it.
He breaks down the baby gate I assume pretty easily.
The current trash can is a larger can and has a top that closes.
I’d rather not have to move or get a new trash can…size doesn’t matter he’ll get inside it regardless I think. By moving the trash can I would just be masking his issue…I really just want to make him stop!
I’ve also put hot sauce in the trash bag itself and once again had no luck. It seems like NOTHING will keep him out!
My next move is to buy a crate and stick him in the crate while I’m at work during the day. I’d really rather not do that either.
I also read about somehow putting mouse traps on or around the trash can which is something I have not tried yet because I also have a cat and wouldn’t want that poor guy to caught up in a trap especially when he hasn’t done anything wrong.
Please leave constructive ideas/remedies if you do respond to this. Don’t need people bit$%ing about anything…

I’m basically just hoping to get some new fresh ideas from you guys…!!!

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOLKS!!!

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I need to install a DIY alarm that will set off a buzzer and light when a baby gate has been open too long. Any Ideas????

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i have seen the baby gate that is sort of circular i think it has 6 or 8 side i am interested in buying that, my question is to any m,others that have that gate was your child able to push it over when inside? my daughter is 10 months old and is standing up holding on to everything i am concerned that she would put all her weight on it and it would tip over, has this happened with any other children? thanks just wondering before i buy it

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My cat Buju wont jump over a baby gate. He would be playing with my other cat and when Angel jumps over the baby gate, Buju stops in his tracks. I just curious as to why he wont jump over a baby gate.

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