Stair gates can be used at the top of the stairs (to prevent your baby from falling down) and at the bottom (to stop them from climbing up). They can also be used to close off unsafe rooms and to temporarily add additional barriers to your home, whether that’s across a doorway or another narrow opening. When deciding which stair gate is best for you, it helps to work out what’s important to you before you buy. For example: And finally, remember that the use of a baby gate does not replace proper supervision of your baby. Gates can be a handy helper, but there’s nothing like an attentive parent to keep babies out of trouble. You can stop using a stair gate when you’re confident that your child can go up and down the stairs safely on their own (which includes the middle of the night). This will depend on the individual child, but this usually happens at around two or three years of age. If your child doesn’t pull or push on the gate, which could cause it to shift or break, and doesn’t attempt to climb over it, you can keep it in place until you feel comfortable removing it. What are the different types of stair gate?

However, they are generally not safe for use at the top of a staircase. This is for two main reasons. But, installing a baby gate at the stair is not as straightforward as you may think. I mean, what if you have spindles all over your stairway? Another issue is, these spindles and banister come in different sizes and shapes. So choosing the right baby safety gate for Stairs with Spindles or Banister is vital. Size: M8 bolts fit a pressure mount door with a spindle diameter of 8mm, please determine the size before purchasing. Each spindle pole is 12 cm (4.7 in) long, extending the length to help reach stair railings and ensure a strong and secure fit. Capable of fitting in more places than shorter alternatives. Perfect safety solution for extra wide spaces with added one hand functionality…. This was the most decent one I could find that allowed the side pieces to bend."

Another popular choice amongst parents in our community who said "I went for grey to match in with my hallway decor - it’s easy to fit and open and close one handed."

The gate’s latch or clip needs to be secure enough to stop a child from opening it. Most connections can be opened one-handed, for when you’re carrying your child, but the safest are those with mechanisms requiring two actions, such as squeezing and lifting. It is important to note that the top of stair baby-gates should be firmly fixed by screwing them and not by pressure mounting using tension knobs. Hardware mount and one-hand pass-throughs make this baby gate easy for adults too. At the same time, adjustable dimensions accommodate openings as wide as 29″ up to 42″. So it’ll fit any staircase in your home. But what parents love most about this gate is how it opens and closes. You open the gate by pressing the a button and lifting the gate's handle, an operation that's very easy to perform one-handed. If you let the gate go, it swings shut and latches automatically. You can also push it open more than 90 degrees and it stays open by itself, an extraordinarily useful feature when you need to go through the gate repeatedly.We have this one at the top and bottom of stairs plus a kit that helped us attach it to the banister. It’s nice because there’s no bottom bar." It also comes with hardware for the wall to wall mount. It is also perfect for the banister to wall installation. 2. Summer Infant Banister and Stair Gate

BANISTER ADAPTER: Padded Y-spindle rods are designed to grip onto large and small banisters and railings at the bottom of stairs, as well as wall corners and other unorthodox shapes. Texture dots on padded end pieces help ensure a snug no-slide grip. Extending stair gates: These can be adjusted to fit a range of doorway widths without the need for any additional extension pieces One way to ensure your little one is safe, is by using a stair gate. We’ve done the research for you and found the most reliable stair gates on the market. What is a baby stair gate? Installation is easier thanks to provided paper guides: Find and mark the location of wall studs, then tape the guides over them to precisely mark where the screws go, no measuring necessary.Your staircase can have spindles on both sides. Or it may have spindles on one side, while another side is just a plain wall. So the mounting points may not be straight across from each other. In such a situation, once again, an angle-mounted baby gate can be very convenient. Materials Used in Spindles: COMPATIBLE WITH: Pressure gates from Baby Dan, Lindam, Safety 1st, Bindaboo, Dreambaby, Munchkin, and North States (Supergate). Don't see your gate's brand? Try switching to the M8 (8mm) size. It’s recommended that you invest in a high-quality stair gate as soon as your baby starts crawling and/or walking, but when it comes to something as important as your child’s safety, how do you know which is the best stair gate to buy? Although the BabyDan Guard Me is safe for use anywhere in your home, the best stair gate for use at the top of the stairs is the Safety 1st Wall Fix Extending Metal Gate, which is also the best screw-fit stair gate we tested. This Extra Wide Safety Gate features an all-steel sturdy construction. It is adjustable and swings openly in one direction. It fits wide openings between 24-inch to 40.5-inches. It is fitted with a rotating latch for easy opening. It can also be used in hallways and doorways.

Assembly: How easy was the gate to install? Were the instructions clear? Were any additional tools or fixings required? There’s a lot that goes into choosing the right baby gate for your family and your space. And, we’re not going to get into that here. But, I can tell you we love our Cardinal Gates Stairway Special Gates (and that’s what I’m installing in this post)! We did a lot of research on the safest gates (wall mounted is the way to go–sorry to all you who were hoping not to break out a drill/driver), as well as ease of use and install, and these kept coming up. We bought 3 for our duplex, and we couldn’t be happier with them.While pressure-fit gates can be used at the bottom of a staircase, or in a doorway or other narrow openings, they’re not suitable for the top of a staircase, as the bottom bar of the frame can pose a trip hazard. If you know you will be in the stair gate phase of life for a while with multiple small children, you may want a more permanent option. This fixed stair gate from Safetots comes in lots of different colour options from white, to natural wood, to grey and more. The width of the gate can be extended by removing and changing the position of the screws. Regalo's gate is suitable for stairs and installs safely on walls with molding or baseboards (on one or both sides), as well as on stair landings with banisters on one or both sides. If your banisters are nice to look at, you'll love this even more: You install this gate onto banisters by attaching adapter straps that wrap around them then are screwed shut to tighten. No need to put holes in your pretty hardwood. BANNISTER ADAPTER: Padded Y-spindle rods are designed to grip onto large and small bannisters and railings at the bottom of stairs, as well as wall corners and other unorthodox shapes. Texture dots on padded end pieces help ensure a snug no-slide grip. We love the fact it can be used inside door frames or fitted to walls either side of the door and –thanks to its 180-degree mount – it can be installed at an angle giving it the stability of other screw-fit, metal gates in this list but the versatility of a material/mesh model.