Help - what stair gate would fit here?

[lucyricketts]

Hello!

My 8 month old is crawling and we desperately need to sort a stair gate but I've no idea where to start with stairs like this!! We have a 3 storey house and these are the top of the stairs on the middle floor so it's a must to have it here because our lounge is on this floor.

Any ideas or anyone found something for similar stairs? Thank you!!

A retractable one would work as you can clip it to the architrave on the door?

It isn’t recommended to use a stairgate on stairs themselves as the consequences can be awful if older babies/young toddlers scale them and fall down the entire flight of stairs- and daring 12MOs can sometimes manage this, it’s not something that’s way off in the future. Also the ones with a bar across the bottom are a trip risk for adults. Far better and safer to stairgate the doors to the room you want to contain DC in and/or use a playpen when you need to nip away. Added bonus is that any standard gate will work fine on a standard door frame so it’s also easier.

I'd put one on the living room door or hallway if possible. Safer than at the top of the stairs.

I disagree with the last two PPs. A stairgate (clue is in the name) at the top and bottom of stairs is fine. We've been using them for years with our two. Much safer than children falling down the stairs during transitions between rooms on the same floor. You can put them on rooms as well if you fancy, but on stairs for an 8 month old is only sensible.
As the first poster said, a retractable one is a good shout (also they can't really scale these because the fabric won't let them).

Due to the layout of the house it's impractical for us to block the lounge off only. All other areas of the middle floor are safe apart from the stairs so I'd like to find a stair solution. Does anyone know if the retractable ones will work diagonally and not straight across? Just because it'll be on an angle if I attach it to the frame of the lounge door. Thanks all

You can’t use a retractable on that. We had a similar staircase and used a retractable. Because it was different at the top and the bottom, the bottom tension was looser, Dd rolled under it and fell down the stairs. It was awful. I had a custom made one fitted after that

Oh no!! So sorry to hear this! My family member suggested going straight across and just leaving the top 2 stairs open but since he's been crawling he's obsessed with getting to the stairs so I don't want him to hurt himself on just the two open ones either. Did you use a local company or were they nationwide for the custom fit? If you don't mind me asking was it very expensive?

You can get really long ones that are more like room dividers. I would get one of those and put it across the whole top so it also covers the beams to the right because although they look like small gaps it's amazing what a young child can squeeze themselves through.

You could cabletie it to the bars.

Watching this thread op as we have really awkward stairs, they are straight but no wall one side at the bottom and at the top that wall isn't in line with the bannister !

Can you go from the door frame to the corner spindle? I don't know if the spindle is strong enough tho.
Or, build up the box /shelf until it is the height of the banisters, and attach to that.

As soon as my daughter started crawling we showed her how to climb and come down the stairs safely and climb down from the sofa.

We only used the stair gate at the bottom of the stairs for a few weeks as once the stairs had been demystified and she was allowed to climb up when we were going up the stairs with her.

We have always used one at the top of the stairs. We had similar at the top of the steps in our old house but it was only the thickness of the skirting board at the bottom so we fitted a wooden block at the top to put the stairs so the Stargate fitted properly but we only need it to be a few centimetres

@lucyricketts Luckily she wasn’t hurt because she rolled but lt could have been really different. We used a local guy. It’s not great aesthetically but it did the job. All he did in reality was buy a gate I could have bought myself from eBay and whacked an extra piece of wood on the side. Coat 150 ish I think. You’re best asking locally for a carpenter or joiner unless you’ve got a handy relative. Like I say the retractable ones are dodgy because they rely on tension all the way down and if it’s not checked all the way along the length every time you use it they can be loose on the bottom and that’s how our accident happened. I’ve attached a pic of ours where the extra bit is to fit the odd shape. You need to either attach a piece of wood to the wall to build it out or attach a piece to the gate higher up so it fits flush with the wall and you can lock it

Hiya, yes the retractable ones can go at an angle hence me suggesting it!!