CP: Do you have a baby gate at the top of your stairs?

[shevacc]

We don't have one. Yet? Maybe? G can climb down the stairs safely backwards when she's paying attention, but it still makes me somewhat nervous. Our stairs are complicated to gate and I'm not sure I'd be able to install one without drilling into the bannister which I'd rather avoid. Am I crazy and negligent?

Poll choices:
Yes
No, but we plan to get one soon
No, and don't plan on it
Special Stairflake

[imimahoney]

Yep. We actually have one at the top and bottom. We are paranoid and the top landing is short. I would hate for him to fall down the stairs.

[christidee]

We don't have one. The only gates we have found that are sturdy enough have to be bolted into the walls. That is something we don't want to do.

For now we are super cautious. If J is upstairs, someone is always with him following him around. 

[shevacc]

May 30, 2013 18:08:21 GMT -5 christidee said:

We don't have one. The only gates we have found that are sturdy enough have to be bolted into the walls. That is something we don't want to do.

For now we are super cautious. If J is upstairs, someone is always with him following him around. 

This is exactly what we do now.

[kkfeb04]

We do since DS is in a twin bed and we don't want him to have full run of the downstairs. We only put it up when we moved him to a twin at 22 months.

[kkfeb04]

We do not have a gate at the bottom.

[SteelCity44]

We have one at the top of the steps, bottom of the steps and at the basement door (that doesn't actually close). We have the kind that have a door you can swing open or closed. Micah isn't much of a climber, so we rarely close the one at the bottom of the steps. Since he doesn't climb, he doesn't know how to go down steps. He steers clear of them (even small ones outside, like the curb), but we don't want to risk it. I don't think you're crazy if you don't have them though.

[muppetinma]

We don't play upstairs. If we're up in his room, for bath or bedtime, the door to his room is closed. We spend all of our time on the main floor, so we have one gate that blocks that off from the stairs.

[teamhayes]

We don't yet but keep talking about getting one. It is a double banister so not that easy to find a good one that is still semi stylish. We just watch him carefully but he does love stairs.

[bean47]

Yes but we have a split so its needed in our living area.

[claralou]

This is not the first time I've been grateful that we don't have stairs.

[Deleted]

We can put it at the top of the stairs so it is actually a few feet back in the hallway.

[Beener]

We tried but it isn't feasible in our house. The way our upper banister is, it doesn't match up with the wall so the gate would have to be on a weird angle and wouldn't work. It is difficult to explain but it didn't work. Instead, we have a gate blocking her bedroom from the area leading to the top of the stairs. When we are in the playroom (which is open to the stairs) we watch her closely.

We also have a gate blocking the living room from the stairs.

[livinreality]

We have the top of the stairs and the bottom of the stairs blocked... the moment you blink and either gate is open he is on the stairs, he just loves them, I don't remember DS1 having this attraction...

[sunshineluv]

Yes, we have one. Our loft area where he plays is upstairs, I am very thankful for the ugly expensive gate

[tuck]

Yes, but we never have it up. With the way our stairs are located, and the position the gate has to be in to work, it either has to be closed or off (it's fairly easy to remove the gate from the mounting hardware). 

[mala]

I'm a special stairflake. We have one at the bottom. The top of our stairs is literally just a landing with three doors coming off it right away. Our bedroom, the bathroom, and B's room. We have a gate up on B's room, but not at the top of the stairs, our room, or the bathroom. The theory being that she will rarely be in our bedroom or the bathroom and if she is we will just close the door.

[helicase]

We don't have a gate and I don't think we'll get one until we have a second child. As of right now, myself or DH is following him around all the time and we always reinforce going down the steps feet first. With a second child, I'm sure we'll be more distracted and need the reassurance of a gate blocking off the stairs.

[BlueNotebook]

We have a permanent one at the top of the steps, the level with our kitchen and bedrooms. we never took it down after installing it when DD was a baby. That will be there for at least another year.

Our living room is on a level of it's own, with stairs going up and down and we have gates we put up on both staircases when we're there playing. DS loves climbing the stairs but is easily distracted so I have to be right on his tail. That's hard to do when DD is wanting attention too.

[vidalia]

We have one at the top and bottom of the stairs. The bottom of the stairs was tricky and we had to get a really big gate to fit, but I'm glad we have it. We do let N practice going up and down the stairs. She's great with up, but down she still wants to go headfirst!

[irish625]

We have gates that barricade her into our family room and kitchen (which is basically one big room). When she's upstairs, she's really good about going into the room we tell her and rarely goes for the stairs. Our steps are at a weird angle at the top and and the bottom is two banisters that we don't really want to drill into. If anything we would probably put a gate up at her bedroom door.

[bigapple]

Special snowflake. We don't have stairs, but I do have a gate blocking the kitchen. No babies allowed!

[mumegs]

We don't have one at the top, I tried to find one that would fit the banister but I haven't been able to yet. We just watch her really closely up there or keep the doors shut.
She has just recently started trying to climb up the stairs every 5 minutes so I do want to find one that we can put at the bottom somehow.

[Dorothy Zbornak]

No, but we can shut the doors to the living room and kitchen so he can't get to the stairs. Until he can open doors, that is.