Purchase the right baby gate at the right time !
Baby Gates are safety baby gear, which is key when babies start crawling & begin to learn walking. Baby gates are especially important if a parent home has more than one floor & when babies need to be off-limits to different rooms like home gyms or home office.
One of the most important decisions a parent needs to make is purchasing the right type of baby gate at the right time. The different types of baby gates are briefly explained here
- Pressure-Mounted Baby Gates – As the name suggests, these types of baby gates are mounted between 2 solid wall or wooden surfaces & uses pressure to hold the gate together. The construction of the gate allows it to be stable. Most common application of these types of gates is as room barriers or hallways barriers.
- Wall-Mounted Baby Gates This type of gate is a very basic gate, which is mounted with screws directly into the wall or wood and therefore has the ability to withstand more than pressure-mounted baby gates. Some key features of these gates are
- These gates should not have a horizontal bar at the bottom, which might cause baby to trip.
- Some wall mounted baby gates have a special swing-stop mechanism to prevent the gate from swinging out over the stairs.
- Wall-mounted gates can be used at the top and bottom of stairs and at window openings.
- Baby Playpens - Baby Playpens are used where babies need to be confined within a room of a house, where in babies are kept within a the playpen space, which is large enough for them to play & move freely. Academy of pediatrics recommends to place babies in playpens for not more than 20 minutes. Playpens are made of plastic & are usually expandable to form a circular or a rectangular shape.
Safety & Important Guidelines
Now that the different types of baby gates are explained, some very important guidelines, which all parents need to be aware of, are as follows
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Pressure mounted gates should never be at the top of stairways as there is no hard surface on top or bottom of stairways.
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Baby Gates should be used at the top of stairs, at the bottom of stairs, and in between rooms, safety gates act as barriers to child cars or electronic moving devices also.
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Different baby gates have different installation instruction, which should be carefully read for safe installation.
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All baby gates should usually be taller than the babies by at least 1ft, such that it discourages babies to climb or try to climb over the gate.
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There might have been product recalls by Consumer Product Safety Commission, which should be researched by all parents before purchase here http://cpsc.gov/
