Our The First Years Hands Free Gate We now have a Houdini at our home! JB who will be two in June received her big girl bed last September. The girl was creating holes in the walls when banging and sliding her baby's crib in the room, therefore we gave up and decided to buy her a twin bed - very much like her big sister's. Her big sister (A.K.A Gabster) had made the transition quite simply therefore we were longing for much the same experience. JB found out the very first night that she could possibly leave her bed as well as her bedroom and stroll around the upstairs of our home. The Gabster alerted us for this when she screamed at 3 a.m. "Get this pest out of my bed".
Fine, I told The Hubby, you're in charge. Discover a method to hold JB safely contained in between the hours of 10 p.m. and six a.m. Preferably in her bed, but at least in her own bedroom. Before you recommend simply just closing her door, we did. We actually made use of one of those plastic child-proof doorknob covers. Tiny Houdini figured it out in just days. Fortunately, The Hubby went up to the challenge and arrived home with
The First Years Hands Free Gate</i></i>.
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b></b></i> is sleek, white and straightforward to set up. It's also the 4th different kind of gateway to come into our house, and so i approached it with a little bit of skepticism. Others had failed before - exactly what would make this gate different?
Ooooh - no hands! How cool! No more juggling a sleeping little one to open the gate. No maneuvering out of the way as the gate swings open. No need to have The Hubby make four trips to the home improvement store just to have this gate up and running.
This gate,
The First Years Hands Free Gate</i></b></i> is pressure mounted. Meaning you keep the gate in the doorway where you would like to use it and twist the ends until it is good and stuck! No hammer and nails, no power drill - what's even better - no holes in the wall. In fact, there's a nut that twists to hold the small pressure pads in place. Luckily, included with the gate is the wrench/lock-fit gauge thing-a-ma-bobby you need to make it all happen. The pressure pads are wonderful. They keep the gate's hardware from doing any damage to your walls. Ours (the pressure pads - not the walls) are white and are made of some kind of rubber. Potential clients must note that tightening up the nuts (there are four) does indeed require some upper body strength. This gate will work best when a passing baby is unable to even shake it, so tighten away with the thing-a-ma-bobby.
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b></i> will fit into any doorway which is 29" to 34" wide. Gleam 5" extension accessible that will make this gate fit openings approximately 44" wide. The maker states that users might have 1 extension on each side of
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b></b></i> and it will still be safe. They do not advise exceeding this number for protection factors. Fortunately we didn't need an extension for JB's narrow bedroom entrance. Not surprisingly, the extension is sold separately and possibly costs a lot of money so I was fine without needing one.
Ok, so you have got it in. Now how does it perform?? Oh this is so awesome. The good news is that even though your kids notice you opening the gate, they'll NOT be able to do it. Why you ask yourself? Well,
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b></i> is controlled with a FOOT PEDAL! There is a grey 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch piece of plastic that the adult who would like to open the gate steps on with one foot and "bam" the gate will open. The control pedal is on both sides of the gate, so the "opening adult" may operate the gate from other side. This did initially create a difficulty for us because we were utilizing it in JB's entrance and still needed to be able to close the door to her room. The control pedal was keeping us from being able to close the door completely. Repositioning the gate an additional inch far from the doorway improved this challenge.
Two nice options that come with
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b></i> include that the gate swings open in both ways. From a mom with previous gates which are installed and can only swing one direction, believe me, this is mostly a plus. The 2nd is that the gate produces a noticeable "click" to indicate to you the gate has locked. I really like this, except at night when I wish to have the ability to close the gate as gently as I possibly can. Never happens. And the tiny stinker swears the "click" woke her up.
The noted click also has to be rated a minus for the noise element. I would like to manage to lock the enemy within - but not have them find out. One more negative is that after 2 or 3 weeks of locking herself in her room, JB Houdini still doesn't get it. Both girls repeatedly close the gate behind them when they go into the room and later complain that they're "locked in". Duh - do not close the gate. I do not really mind, but at the daybreak when I am trying to find that last five minutes of rest, hearing "open the gate, open the gate" is totally bothersome.
Please take into account, much like any gate you might obtain for your home, unless the gate can be MOUNTED to the wall with hardware, DO NOT put it to use at the top of a staircase. Again, the only type of gate that may be acceptable to be used at the top of the stairs is a gate which is PERMENENTLY Connected to the wall. This (and all other) pressure mounted gates (types that need no hardware) are not safe to EVER use at the top of the stairs.
You can look at
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b></b> and several other great baby safety gates at
The First Years Hands Free Gate</b>