Naomi
17-08-2005, 09:52 AM
I know there are a few of us with little babies that are starting to get mobile so I'm going to share my experience with safety gates ... might help someone else make a decision.
We have two gates. One is a BabyDan which was recommended by Choice as being the safest of the gates they tested. It's a normal width gate (I think we have it for a width of about 95cms) but you can get extensions. It is a good gate, quite difficult to open until you get used to it (You need to press a button, lift the latch and then lift the gate. Doable but difficult with one hand. But I suppose this is good in terms of baby not being able to open it). It was a bit of a pain to install, has a pressure guage which is fiddly and it's not the kind of gate you'd move around much because of that. ($109, exensions extra).
We also had a really wide (128cm) hallway needing a gate and at first tried the BabyDan Elongate (wider version of the normal gate). This would have been great except it needs to be screwed into the wall and we couldn't do that). If that's not a problem, I would probably go with the Elongate. ($129, extensions extra).
So now we have the DreamBaby Hallway gate which is great (was not reviewed by Choice, but I can't see any obvious safety risks). It was easy to install and has an easy to open mechanism (just lift and pull, easy to do one handed) and swings closed automatically. It fits our 128cm hallway with the gate and a 27cm extension ($119 for the gate, $30 for the extension). You can use up to 2 extensions - they come in 9, 18 and 27cms.
Both gates we have are in white (the gates are metal) so they look nice, and they keep Hugo safely in the loungeroom and off the stairs. The only problem is that the cats can't fit between the bars and one of them can't jump over the gate so we need to keep opening it for him to come and go between rooms :roll:
We have two gates. One is a BabyDan which was recommended by Choice as being the safest of the gates they tested. It's a normal width gate (I think we have it for a width of about 95cms) but you can get extensions. It is a good gate, quite difficult to open until you get used to it (You need to press a button, lift the latch and then lift the gate. Doable but difficult with one hand. But I suppose this is good in terms of baby not being able to open it). It was a bit of a pain to install, has a pressure guage which is fiddly and it's not the kind of gate you'd move around much because of that. ($109, exensions extra).
We also had a really wide (128cm) hallway needing a gate and at first tried the BabyDan Elongate (wider version of the normal gate). This would have been great except it needs to be screwed into the wall and we couldn't do that). If that's not a problem, I would probably go with the Elongate. ($129, extensions extra).
So now we have the DreamBaby Hallway gate which is great (was not reviewed by Choice, but I can't see any obvious safety risks). It was easy to install and has an easy to open mechanism (just lift and pull, easy to do one handed) and swings closed automatically. It fits our 128cm hallway with the gate and a 27cm extension ($119 for the gate, $30 for the extension). You can use up to 2 extensions - they come in 9, 18 and 27cms.
Both gates we have are in white (the gates are metal) so they look nice, and they keep Hugo safely in the loungeroom and off the stairs. The only problem is that the cats can't fit between the bars and one of them can't jump over the gate so we need to keep opening it for him to come and go between rooms :roll: