We now have a Houdini at our home! JB who will be two in May got her big girl bed past September. She was generating holes in the walls when bumping and sliding her crib in the room, therefore we threw in the towel and got her a twin bed - the same as her big sister's. Her big sister (A.K.A Gabster) had made the transition without difficulty therefore we were hoping for the same experience.
JB found out the first night that she could possibly get away from her bed as well as her room and stroll around the upstairs of our house. The Gabster alerted us for this when she screamed at 4 a.m. "Get this pest out of my bed".
Ok, I told The Man, you're in charge. Discover a method to keep JB contained between the hours of 10 p.m. and six a.m. Ideally in her bed, but at least in her own room. Before you propose just shutting her door, we did. We actually utilized one particular plastic child-proof doorknob covers. Small magician figured it out within just few days. Luckily, The Hubby rose to the difficult task and got home with The First Years Hands Free Gate.
The First Years Hands Free Gate is sleek, white and straightforward to set up. It is also the 4th different kind of gate to come into our house, and so i treated it with some skepticism. Other safety gates had failed earlier - exactly what might make this gate distinctive? Ooooh - no hands! How cool! No more juggling a sleeping baby to open the gate. No maneuvering out of the way while the gate swings open. No need to get The Hubby make several trips to the home improvement store simply to get this gate up and running.
This gate, The First Years Hands Free Gate is pressure mounted. This means you keep the gate in the doorway wherever you would like to use it and twist the ends until it is perfect and stuck! No hammer and nails, no electrical power drill - what's even better - no holes in the wall. In fact, there is a nut that twists to maintain the little pressure pads in place. Luckily, provided with the gate is the wrench/lock-fit gauge thing-a-ma-bobby that you need to make it all happen. The pressure pads are excellent. They keep the gate's components from doing any damage to your walls. Ours (the pressure pads - not the walls) are white and are constructed with some type of rubber. Potential customers have to note that tightening the nuts (there are 4) does indeed require some upper body strength. This gate works best when a passing toddler is unable to even wiggle it, so tighten away using the thing-a-ma-bobby.
The First Years Hands Free Gate will fit into any entrance that is 29" to 34" wide. Gleam 5" extension available that can make this gate fit openings up to 44" wide. The maker states that users can have one extension on each side of The First Years Hands Free Gate and it will still be safe. They don't suggest exceeding this number for protection purposes. Thankfully we didn't need an extension for JB's small room doorway. Needless to say, the extension is sold separately and almost certainly costs a lot of money so I was great without in need of one. Ok, so you've got it in. Now just how does it function?? Oh this is so interesting. The good news is that even when your little ones see you opening the gate, they will NOT be able to open it. Why you ask yourself? Well, The First Years Hands Free Gate is controlled with a FOOT PEDAL! There's a grey 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch part of plastic material 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 at first create an issue for us because we were using it in JB's entrance and still needed to be able to shut the door to her room. The foot pedal was keeping us from being able to shut the door entirely. Repositioning the gate one more inch away from the doorway improved this issue.
Two awesome options that come with The First Years Hands Free Gate include the fact that the gate swings open in both ways. From a mother with previous gates which are installed and can only swing one direction, believe me, this is a plus. The second is that the gate makes a loud "click" in order to notify you the gate has locked. I really like this, except at night when I would like to have the ability to close the gate as quietly as I possibly can. Never happens. And the small stinker swears the "click" woke her up. The pointed out click also should be rated a minus for that noise element. I would like to be able to shut the enemy inside - without have them realize. Yet another negative is that after weeks of locking herself in her room, JB Houdini still doesn't get it. Both girls often close the gate behind them when they enter the room and later complain that they are "locked in". Duh - do not close the gate. I don't really mind, but at the very early morning when I am trying to get that last five minutes of rest, hearing "open the gate, open the gate" is completely frustrating.
Please bear in mind, just like any gate you might obtain for your house, unless the gate can be MOUNTED to the wall with hardware, DO NOT use it at the top of a staircase. Again, the only kind of gate that may be acceptable for use at the top of the stairs is a gate which is PERMENENTLY ATTACHED to the wall. This (and all other) pressure mounted gates (ones that require no hardware) aren't safe to EVER use at the top of the stairs.
You can check out the The First Years Hands Free Gate and some other great baby safety gates at The First Years Hands Free Gate
JB found out the first night that she could possibly get away from her bed as well as her room and stroll around the upstairs of our house. The Gabster alerted us for this when she screamed at 4 a.m. "Get this pest out of my bed".
Ok, I told The Man, you're in charge. Discover a method to keep JB contained between the hours of 10 p.m. and six a.m. Ideally in her bed, but at least in her own room. Before you propose just shutting her door, we did. We actually utilized one particular plastic child-proof doorknob covers. Small magician figured it out within just few days. Luckily, The Hubby rose to the difficult task and got home with The First Years Hands Free Gate.
The First Years Hands Free Gate is sleek, white and straightforward to set up. It is also the 4th different kind of gate to come into our house, and so i treated it with some skepticism. Other safety gates had failed earlier - exactly what might make this gate distinctive? Ooooh - no hands! How cool! No more juggling a sleeping baby to open the gate. No maneuvering out of the way while the gate swings open. No need to get The Hubby make several trips to the home improvement store simply to get this gate up and running.
This gate, The First Years Hands Free Gate is pressure mounted. This means you keep the gate in the doorway wherever you would like to use it and twist the ends until it is perfect and stuck! No hammer and nails, no electrical power drill - what's even better - no holes in the wall. In fact, there is a nut that twists to maintain the little pressure pads in place. Luckily, provided with the gate is the wrench/lock-fit gauge thing-a-ma-bobby that you need to make it all happen. The pressure pads are excellent. They keep the gate's components from doing any damage to your walls. Ours (the pressure pads - not the walls) are white and are constructed with some type of rubber. Potential customers have to note that tightening the nuts (there are 4) does indeed require some upper body strength. This gate works best when a passing toddler is unable to even wiggle it, so tighten away using the thing-a-ma-bobby.
The First Years Hands Free Gate will fit into any entrance that is 29" to 34" wide. Gleam 5" extension available that can make this gate fit openings up to 44" wide. The maker states that users can have one extension on each side of The First Years Hands Free Gate and it will still be safe. They don't suggest exceeding this number for protection purposes. Thankfully we didn't need an extension for JB's small room doorway. Needless to say, the extension is sold separately and almost certainly costs a lot of money so I was great without in need of one. Ok, so you've got it in. Now just how does it function?? Oh this is so interesting. The good news is that even when your little ones see you opening the gate, they will NOT be able to open it. Why you ask yourself? Well, The First Years Hands Free Gate is controlled with a FOOT PEDAL! There's a grey 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch part of plastic material 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 at first create an issue for us because we were using it in JB's entrance and still needed to be able to shut the door to her room. The foot pedal was keeping us from being able to shut the door entirely. Repositioning the gate one more inch away from the doorway improved this issue.
Two awesome options that come with The First Years Hands Free Gate include the fact that the gate swings open in both ways. From a mother with previous gates which are installed and can only swing one direction, believe me, this is a plus. The second is that the gate makes a loud "click" in order to notify you the gate has locked. I really like this, except at night when I would like to have the ability to close the gate as quietly as I possibly can. Never happens. And the small stinker swears the "click" woke her up. The pointed out click also should be rated a minus for that noise element. I would like to be able to shut the enemy inside - without have them realize. Yet another negative is that after weeks of locking herself in her room, JB Houdini still doesn't get it. Both girls often close the gate behind them when they enter the room and later complain that they are "locked in". Duh - do not close the gate. I don't really mind, but at the very early morning when I am trying to get that last five minutes of rest, hearing "open the gate, open the gate" is completely frustrating.
Please bear in mind, just like any gate you might obtain for your house, unless the gate can be MOUNTED to the wall with hardware, DO NOT use it at the top of a staircase. Again, the only kind of gate that may be acceptable for use at the top of the stairs is a gate which is PERMENENTLY ATTACHED to the wall. This (and all other) pressure mounted gates (ones that require no hardware) aren't safe to EVER use at the top of the stairs.
You can check out the The First Years Hands Free Gate and some other great baby safety gates at The First Years Hands Free Gate
