Nightmare very wide stairgate problem

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We have stairs on 4 levels with huge steep drops and ideally need 6 stairgates but could manage for now with 3. They have to be on the stairs - blocking in rooms isn't the right solution for us because he is getting really bored being shut in one room (usually the kitchen with me) and i want him to have the run of a floor. The problem is the gaps between wall and staircase spindles are about 112cm long. The staircase is a wide wooden spiral with a wall on one side and square metal newal posts / spindles on the other about 2cm wide. There is a curved wooden spiral bannister which we'd prefer not to drill into, but we really don't care at this point. The bannister is quite shaky and not ideal to drill into - it would be better to drill posts into the floor if we have to. The steps are wide at one side, narrow at the other and they are not level. They slope as the house is 200yrs old and has shifted. We have tried fitting a pressure autoclose bettagate with 2 extensions, from safetots and spent ages with the manufacturer on the phone but couldn't get it to work without drilling into secure posts which we didn't try as we didn't realise this at that point. Also, the stairgate door doesn't close properly. We tried to send it back to safetots but they said the metal was cracked on one part and the extensions were bent so they wouldn't refund the 80.00 it cost us incl return postage. Eventually we got the gate back. Did find a small crack - not sure how / when this happened. Couldn't see the bent extensions. Door still not closing. We have had such an expensive & ineffective nightmare with the bought stairgate that i'm very nervous about that kind of solution Have also called 6 joiners re a custom solution. 2 haven't returned calls. 1 keeps promising to get back to us but as he also needs to to mend the holes in the wall he left last time he was here we don't expect much, one decided he didn't want the job in case anything went wrong with his solution, one wanted 400.00 for 3 gates and i didn't have much confidence in him and we are still waiting for a quote from another. This is my biggest problem at the moment as DS learnt to walk recently and makes a beeline for the stairs. He also fell halfway down the stairs recently at grannies but that hasn't put him off. Any stairgate has to be super-strong as DS is a born shaker.

Hi, have you tried the Kiddyguard Stair Gate? I had two in my old house and they are fab. Can't do links but they sell them on John Lewis' website.

The Kiddyguard fits gaps up to 130cm wide so would be ideal plus it stays out of sight when not using it.

We have these. Originally bought for a very narrow staircase. They are made by a Swedish company called Lascal. I can't get their website to work tonight but when I've looked before they had good pics.

Have you thought about teaching him to be safe on stairs? We couldn't use stair gates with ds2 or ds3 (eldest son autistic and wouldn't tolerate them) but lived in a house with 5 stories (loads of stairs!). Both boys were really safe on them very quickly. I had a playpen for times when they had to be put somewhere safe.

We have nightmare gaps in the bannisters (old house- decorative features) that ds1- now 9 can still fit through (and he tries). We blocked them off to make it safer.

Thank goodness bannister gaps are not a problem for us. I think the stair accident happened when grannie was teaching him to go downstairs (from the top!) & i think he is a bit too young at the mo given the failure of our current efforts. He couldn't really care less about learning to go down - all he wants to do is climb. I am all for stair teaching asap but TBH our drops are so long if he fell it would be disastrous & I couldn't live with myself so we do need gates for now. Meanwhile i have a donated playpen for when i have to nip to the loo / put the rubbish out etc & it is an absolute godsend.

I've looked at kiddiguards in the past when we first had the problem. Thought they wouldn't work as i couldn't see what we'd attach them to on the spindle side but thinking about it again i guess we could just put in a post. I love the no trip solution as i could see that was going to be a big issue had we ever got the bettagate to work. I think we will give them a go. JL is a good idea as they are good with returns. Thanks all for the inspiration!

HUGE relief to see a way forward on this. Thanks again!

in our old house we had a couple of odd shaped and wide stair gaps. We had an extending gate from Mothercare but can't remember manufacturer but adapted quite well. But then DH basically built a frame for it from hefty wooden battens to even up the space and make it robust where the spindles wouldn't take the strain. Looked awful but we felt safe as it was mostly screwed into the wall... Can't really visualise your stairs but HTH

It's basically a wide curved spiral going up 4 floors with a curved wooden handrail held up by 2cm square metal spindles spaced quite close together.

I think we are going to build a frame as you suggest for the recommended kiddiguard. Really don't care what it looks like at this point but i think one of the adv of the kg is that when people come in the evening you can hide the blind for easy access up the stair!

I can't visualise your stairs, but have you considered the Babydan playden? You can get a fixing kit to fix to walls, so that you can use as many panels (out of the 6) as you need, and bend the joints in whatever direction you need to make the room divider. We have blocked off a large opening into our kitchen using 3 panels. One end is attached to the wall, the three panels all bend in different directions, and the other end is attached to the breakfast bar at 90degrees to the first end. The fixing kit allows for a certain degree of irregularity in the walls.

Thank you, someone has just lent us a set actually to see if it wd work. Again wasn't sure how we could fix it on the spindle side of the stairs but a post would do it. And cd be attached to the wall on the other side. Still need to set it up to try.