stairgate for steep stairs. Please help....

[redbird]

Hello all. We have very steep stairs in Victorian house. They go up the middle of the house and at the top you step into one bedroom and then the other side into another. Its so hard to attach a stairgate as there is a bannister on one side. Also when you walk out of the bedroom there is a drop unless you keep to the right. Does that make any sense? It is so dangerous and worries me every day. Anyone else have this problem? Any solutions. Thank you. PS I have toddler and baby.

How about putting a stairgate on each of the two bedrooms instead of across the stairs themselves? We had a similar problem not being able to block the bottom of our stairs and put them across a doorway and a narrow hall instead.

We ended up having to scew extra bits of wood to the wall (e.g. build out under the bannister so that it is all one depth), also we found only the cheapest, screw in wall ones would go narrow enough to fit.

Having been in a similiar situation we taught our babies to come down stairs as early as possible, drumming into them to always turn around when you come to a stair and lower yourselves down, both were coming down stairs independently very soon after crawling so that if a gate was left open by accident they would be more likely to just come down safely rather than fall.

we have exactly what you descibe and worked it by keeping baby in cot as long as possible (and safe to do so) in our case it was 2 yrs 2 months as we had a really steady cot - so by that age he could negotiate the stairs outside each bedroom and only need a gate at the top of the stairs - this one we bought in ikea - wooden one - will be on a very long time as it safeguards any sleepy, dreamy children standing at the top and falling down - hope this helps....

Your house sounds exactly the same as ours.

We got a Lindam wooden one (from Argos) and screwed the hinges to the bedroom doorframe. The latch is on a small bit of wood screwed to the wall on the other side.

That worked -- but it had to be at the height of the bedroom doorway, not the height of the top step (so it would open). That meant there was a gap of about a foot underneath it which a child could easily have fallen through.

DH screwed a sort of hardboard and wood sandwich to the bottom of the gate to fill it in. The wood stiffens the hardboard and stops it breaking off. I can explain in more detail if you want.

It is working well so far.

One problem with some stairgates is that they rely on the bottom of the gate touching the floor for the latch to work. That caused a problem with this setup -- but there is a way round it.

I'm trying to encourage our 17 month old to learn to go down backwards which is slightly terrifying as they are so steep, but I know I won't manage to carry him down once our new baby arrives!