Kidco or Cardinal or Evenflo Safety Gate

We have 3 evenflo wooden hard-mount gates for at the top of our stairs -- we have a tri-level home with 3 mini-sets of stairs (7-8 stairs each). We really love these gates! On top of being stain-able to match your woodwork, they have an easy slide out mechanism so that if you want to remove them after the kids go to sleep (or for a year or so between having toddlers where they are necessary) you can just leave the brackets in place but remove the gates. The mechanism is easy to open one-handed for an adult, but the pressure you have to exert while sliding the gate out would be too much for a toddler. Also, some of the safety gates do not suggest mounting in banisters, so if that is your issue, the Evenflo might also be a good choice - one of ours is banister mounted.

I have a kidco gate and I must say I am not impressed. It is one of their longer gates that you connect if you have wider spaces, and it is flimsy and just not well made. I think it is just too thin, because the gate part that opens and shuts isn't very good quality and if my kids were to use it they would destroy it easily, and fast. Your child won't use it now, but if you use the gate say, again in a few more years if you have another child, your child may use it and I don't know if it would hold up. I also have an evenflo gate and that is much better made and has held up well. My favorite gate of all time though is www.retractagate.com. This gate is awesome and it hides away when it's open so you don't have anyone running into an open gate because it is blocking a hallway or anything. It's wonderful and I can't say enough great things about it. We've had it for 3 years now and it still looks and functions like it's brand new. And, I have it on frequently used stairs.

We have been using two evenflo gates for the past few years to control our dog. We went out last weekend and bought two more to finish baby proofing the house.

We think they work great.

I do daycare and have had these gates for 5 1/2 yrs with multiple kids hanging on them daily.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2267704 is at the bottom of my stairs. It has been perfect and I love that it goes almost completely to nothing when it's open. It wasn't hard to install and can be done on an angle which is helpful.

http://www.child-safety-gates.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.100.ex...#
is inbetween my daycare room and the kitchen and I like it a lot. I had to add velcro at the bottom so I can secure it open cause the kids like to play with it. It was really good for the first 3 yrs but in the last 2 yrs it's gotten broken a bit and I have it duct taped together cause the screws are stripped now. LOL. But remember I have 6 kids hanging on it all the time. It was frustrating getting it installed, but once it was installed it worked really great. I like that I can just "bump" it closed if I have a baby in my arms.

I would recommend both of these. I have tried others and not been as happy at all.
N.

Wood gates are harder to keep sanitary than then resin gates. Germs get down inside the wood like in a butcher block cutting board.

Hi E.,

We have a metal (not wood) KidCo gate, and it's great. It's very durable and easy to mount. It comes in three colors (black, metallic, and white). KidCo brand (both metal and wood) was highly recommended by the authors of the book Baby Bargains (which is pretty much my bible for baby products).

Good luck!
R.

We are very happy with our gates. We use the Evenflo "Top of Stair" gate in general places (our hallways, etc.) and we use the Kidco at the top of our stairs. I would have been very happy using the Evenflo everywhere, but we didn't want to drill into our banister at the top of the stairs. (The Kidco lets us snake around the top of the stairs so we can drill it into the wall -- not the banister.)

We were adamant about attaching them into a wall stud, to provide the greatest strength and durability. We do not use the pressure mounted gates, as we do not feel they are secure enough for our active toddlers.

If you stick with gates that you attach to the wall (not the pressure mounted), your kids will be secure and I don't think the brand makes much of a different. Anything you get will be just fine. The Kidco was a very expensive system (once we bought all the extensions!) but the Evenflo was very economical. (I guess that's why I like to Evenflo best!)