Baby Gate Upgrades

We’ve had babies in our house for over a decade. While we definitely haven’t learned all there is to know about babies, we have learned one thing. Baby gates can be a big pain in the rear. Getting them in place. Getting them to stay in place. Getting through (or over them). All of it.

We’ve been through our fair share of baby gates and finally found one we like but still had troubles with at times. Especially when you have older children who like to test their strength capabilities while in fits of rage. Just my kid? Okay.

Well, while this gate worked in the majority of situations, there were a couple of situations that required some Mike consideration. Mike Think? Mikenalysis? I’ll keep working on that. Anyway, the first happened at my parent’s house when we went to visit with a “just learned to crawl” baby. They have a Stairway to Pain if you were to ever take a tumble down them. Wooden stairs ending in tile at the bottom. Ouch. What made it tricky was that it was an open staircase with a fancy, not-flat railing. Also, it was a little too wide to securely fit in the space. Plus we are only there a few days a couple times a year, so putting holes in the wall seemed overkill. Anyway, Mike rigged up this rough and quick solution to attach the baby gate to protect his baby from a tumble. And to test the Grandparent’s motor skills should they decide they needed to descend to the basement.

The next situation happened in our own home. When it was first built I’m guessing it had an unfinished basement and so had a door at the top of the stairs. Unfortunately that door was one of 3 doors to open into a small space. Since the basement was finished when we bought the house and would make that space really crowded and awkward it had been removed. But it still needed something to keep our newly crawling baby safely upstairs. It had flat surfaces to use unlike the previous example but somehow couldn’t get tight enough. Especially with angsty older siblings that occasionally took their frustration with the child proof gateway out on the gate itself. Luckily since this was a door way, it had some extra things to work with, so Mike modeled and 3D printed this to keep things snug. It’s worked like a champ and the gate hasn’t budged for 4 years. No matter the tantrum.

Hopefully these adjustments that we used can help you come up with a good solution for your own baby gate woes.