As your child grows up, and starts to walk, everything in your home becomes an interest to them. While this is good from a developmental stand point, its not always a good thing when it comes to safety.
Keeping your child safe is one of, if not the most important thing that you can do for your child. Accidents involving children can be far too common and can be easily avoided.
In the typical home, there are many things that a baby can get into and hurt themselves on. Using a baby gate can help keep them from certain areas, rooms or even keep them situated in a specific area to help keep them safe.
With their safety in mind, when you first set out to buy a baby gate, it can be a little overwhelming.
How do you know which are the best baby gates out there?
Are hardware mounted better than pressure mounted?
Is it easily transported so you can take it with you?
What about stairs? How do I even pick the best baby gate for stairs to keep them safe?
That’s a lot of questions. To help, we went shopping for you and compiled a list of our top choices of the best baby gates on the market to help answer your questions and help make the buying process much easier.
If you’re ready, we’d would like to show you our recommendations for the 10 Best Baby Gates in 2018.
Let’s get started.
QUICK ANSWER: THE BEST BABY GATE
Supergate Deluxe Décor Metal Gate by North States
Metal Expansion Gate by Summer Infant
Anywhere Decorative Walk-Thru Gate by Summer Infant
How To Choose A Baby Gate – Buying Guide
When we set out to create our list of the 10 best baby gates in 2018, we wanted to make sure that the ones we recommended met a specific set of criteria. With our required criteria, we could then be sure that the ones we highlight would be the perfect option for you and your little one. Here are the criteria we used to build our list:
Height
Having a baby gate high enough will help keep your little one from getting a little too adventurous and try climbing the gate, which could lead to them getting seriously hurt. The recommendation is to buy a gate that is at least three quarters of their height. Gates must already be at least 22 inches high. If your child is a little taller, there are options out there to accommodate him or her.
Construction
As with any piece of baby furniture, having sturdy construction is a must. While gates can come in either wood or metal, making sure that the wood is smooth and splinter-free, while a metal gate has rounded edges instead of squared ones. Other gates will have a support bar that runs along the floor, which can cause a tripping hazard if not looked out for.
Slat Spacing
Your little one loves to touch everything with their hands and a baby gate is going to be no different when they’re standing against it. With a vertical slat opening of more than 3 inches could cause injury whether they try to stick their head through the slats or, if there is a bottom rail, they could try to use it to climb over the gate or even damage the gate so it doesn’t function properly.
Hardware
Baby gates can have very different latching releases from one-hand push down latches, squeezing mechanism latches to latches that operate with a foot pedal. While all of these are good choices, we wanted to ensure that your child wouldn’t be able to open these on their own and at the same time, include a latching indicator so that you know for certain it is closed. While many will make a clicking sound to indicate this, there are some who take this a step further, whether it be a color coded indicator or an alarm when the gate is left open.
Flexibility
Let’s face it; you’re not going to be in the perfect place to put a baby gate every single time. Houses are built as complete boxes. With houses that may have stair balusters or an angled banister or an odd hallway, gate manufactures have provided their consumers with different types of installation options so that you can ensure your baby is safe when one is being used.
Different Types of Baby Gates
When you start looking around for a baby gate, it’s important that you get the right one for each different area your little one will be in during the day. Choosing one that doesn’t work or fit right in your home could result in damage to your home or worse, an injury to your little one.
Hardware-Mounted
Primarily made from wood, aluminum tubing or enamel-coated steel is installed by screwing brackets either to a wall or a door frame, using hardware that comes included with the baby gate. It is not recommended that this hardware is screwed into plaster or drywall without a stud behind it as it could cause the gate to come detached and not function properly. These are considered the most secure type of baby gate, although no gate is guaranteed to be childproof.
Pressure-Mounted
As its name suggests, a pressure mounted baby gate is put in place by putting pressure against the walls or door frame it is being used in. A pressure-mounted gate eliminates the need for screws or putting holes in your walls or door frames. A pressure-mounted frame can be made from many more materials than a standard baby gate, including plastic, wire or nylon mesh. These types of gates are a good fit in areas where the risk of falling is low such as between two rooms or at the bottom of stairs to keep your little one from climbing up.
Benefits of Baby Gates
A baby gate can have many benefits for not only your baby, but for you as well. Knowing what these benefits are can help you make the right choice when it comes time to buy gates for your home.
Safety
This is the most obvious benefit of having baby gates in your home. When your baby begins to walk, things that were no longer dangerous hazards around your home become huge concerns. A good baby gate not only works well, but keeps your baby from being seriously injured.
Mobility
Being able to move a baby gate from room to room to cordon off an area that you don’t want your little one to have access to is a definitive benefit that comes with owning a baby gate. While being more of a feature related to pressure-mounted gate, the ability to bring the gate with you to a family member’s house or to a hotel room if you go on vacation.
Easy storage
When you child reaches an age where they no longer need to use a baby gate, many baby gates will fold or collapse for easy storage. Not every parent will want to keep baby gates up all of the time, being able to easily store gates when they aren’t being used is a welcome benefit.
Creating a play space
For some larger baby gates, parents can not only use them to keep their children safe but can also use them for another purpose. If you are trying to get chores done around the house, having baby gates up can help, but with a larger gate, you can create a personal play space for your little one. Encircling them with the gate and giving them some of their favorite toys will keep them active and keep you from worrying what they might be getting into.
Making Your Home a Safe Space
While the list we have compiled for you will show you our recommendations for the best baby gate in 2018, making your home a safe space overall for your baby is one of the most important things you can do.
Of the close to 3 million moderate injuries, more than half of those relate to children under 1 years old as a result of falling or being hit/struck by an object according to the Center for Disease Control.
Taking the time to child proof your home to reduce the risk of these types of injuries, especially if those in your home are young children can easily be accomplished with a little planning. While these are just a few tips, they can help keep your child safe throughout your home.
See What Your Child Sees – As an adult, the way we may see a room will definitely be different than the way your child would see it. Because of that, items that you may not consider as being dangerous could have horrible results if your child were to get their hands on them. The best way to do this is to get on your knees to see from your child’s perspective and make appropriate changes based on this view.
Keep Electrical Outlets Protected – Electrical outlet covers may be cheap to buy at any hardware store, but their innate value cannot be measured. Outlets can look like playgrounds to little children and they might want to try to fit anything into one of the slots, from fingers to forks or coins that they might find on the floor. Taking the time to go room to room and cover your outlets can help reduce the risk of injury.
Secure Furniture to Walls – It seems like almost every other week, there is a story on the news of a young child who tries to climb their dresser or a bookshelf and ends up pulling the piece of furniture on top of them, trapping them and causing serious injury.
For just a few dollars, many stores offer furniture anchors that, if your little one happens to climb their dresser and it starts to tip, the anchor will “catch” the furniture so that it doesn’t topple over.
Another area of concern is your baby’s head and neck. At first, your baby’s neck won’t be strong enough for them to hold their head up on their own. Until they are able to, their head and neck should be properly supported. This typically occurs at around 4 months. Until that point, your baby shouldn’t be carried in a front facing manner.
With a proper carrier, the material of the carrier will be high enough to support your child’s head and neck while keeping them snuggled right up against you which keep them content.
My Babies Planet Overview
When you start the process of choosing the right baby gate from your home, you will easily have a lot of different options that can fill a need to keep your baby safe.
Before doing anything, doing research on not only the types of gates out there, but which ones will work best for not only your needs, but your child’s needs has to be taken into account.
Buying the best baby gate for your home is never a single item purchase. It is likely you will eventually have to purchase more than one gate for different situations, so knowing what you are looking for before starting can be very helpful.
We hope that our list of the 10 Best Baby Gates in 2018 was able to provide you with some options to consider when first starting out. While there are a lot of options out there, we are confident that our list can help you make a perfect choice.
Choosing the correct baby gate for your home is one of the most important decisions that you can make as a parent. As your child grows up, they will start to explore, and as they do, without something to keep them safe, they could get seriously hurt.
More Baby Reviews:
- Baby Travel Strollers
- Baby Swings
- Baby Socks
- Baby Play Mats
- Baby Carriers
- Baby Detergent
- Baby Hats
- Retractable Baby Gates
- Baby Monitors
- Infant Car Seats
Source
- child’s needs, www.psychologytoday.com