We have a Houdini at our house! JB who will be two in April got her big girl bed last October. She was making holes in the walls when banging and sliding her crib around the room, so we gave in (gave up) and bought her a twin bed ? just like her big sister?s. The Gabster (big sister) had made the transition easily and we were hoping for a similar experience. HA!
JB discovered the first night that she could leave her bed and her room and wander around the upstairs of our home. The Gabster alerted us to this when she screamed at 4 a.m. "Get this pest out of my bed". Lovely.
Ok, I told The Hubby, you are in charge. Find a way to keep JB contained between the hours of 10 p.m. and six a.m. Preferably in her bed, but at least in her own room. Before you suggest just closing her door, we did. We even used one of those plastic child-proof doorknob covers. Little magician figured it out within days. Fortunately, The Hubby rose to the challenge and came home with
The First Years Hands-Free Gate. The First Years Hands-Free Gate is sleek, white and easy to install. It is also the 4th different type of gate to come into our home, so I approached it with a bit of skepticism. Others had failed before - what would make this gate special??
Ooooh - no hands! How cool! No juggling a sleeping kid to open the gate. No maneuvering out of the way while the gate swings open. No need to have The Hubby make four trips to the hardware store just to get this gate up and running. On the flipside, no silly installation that I could tease him about for months to come (shameless plug - see my Kidco Safeway Gate review
http://www.epinions.com/content_51640766084) ?the tradeoffs. I?ll live.
This gate,
The First Years Hands-Free Gate is pressure mounted. This means you stick the gate in the doorway where you want to use it and twist the ends till it is good and stuck! No hammer and nails, no power drill ? best of all ? no holes in the wall. Actually, there is a nut that twists to hold the little pressure pads in place. Lucky for us, included 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 great. 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 sort of rubber. Potential buyers should note that tightening the nuts (there are 4) does require some upper body strength. This gate will work best when a passing toddler cannot even wiggle it, so tighten away with the thing-a-ma-bobby.
The First Years Hands-Free Gate will fit in any doorway that is 29" to 34" wide. There is also a 5" extension available that can make this gate fit openings up to 44" wide. The manufacturer says that users can have one extension on each side of
The First Years Hands-Free Gate and it will still be secure. They do not recommend exceeding this number for safety reasons. Fortunately we did not need an extension for JB?s narrow bedroom doorway. Of course, the extension is sold separately and probably costs a fortune so I was fine with not needing one.
Ok, so you?ve got it in. Now how does it work?? Oh this is so cool. The best part is that even if your little kids see you opening the gate, they will NOT be able to do it. Why you wonder? Well,
the First Years Hands-Free Gate is operated by a FOOT PEDAL! There is a gray 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch piece of plastic that the adult who wants to open the gate steps on with one foot and ?POOF? the gate will open. The foot pedal is on both sides of the gate, so the ?opening adult? can operate the gate from other side. This did initially pose a problem for us because we were using it in JB?s doorway and still wanted to be able to close the door to her room. The foot pedal was keeping us from being able to close the door all the way. Repositioning the gate an additional inch away from the door helped this problem.
Two neat features of
the First Years Hands-Free Gate include the fact that the gate swings open in both directions. From a mom with gates that are installed and can only swing one way, trust me, this is a plus. The second is that the gate makes a loud ?click? to tell you the gate has locked. I love this, except at night when I want to be able to close the gate as quietly as I possibly can. Never happens. And the little stinker swears the ?click? woke her up.
Continuing on with the physical description, there is a white 5 x 5 square that is mounted on the bars (on both sides and held in place with two screws) that features the First Years? logo. I always thought that this was just a goofy way for First Years to get their logo on the gate in a spot your eye would notice. I had no idea that it actually serves a purpose until visiting the First Years? website. This square is known as the ?knee-knocker plate? ? a wonderful device that supposedly lets you push the gate open and kick it back shut with your knee. Don?t know ? I?ve never tried it. (I?m not sure I am coordinated enough to pull it off). But if I do try? I promise to report about it right here.
The gate is made from some lovely metal and painted a white finish. The bars are well spaced so that your small people can?t insert their heads. Of course, on occasion, JB Houdini has gotten her sneakered foot stuck. Not amusing! The finish seems to be pretty durable. Our gate does not look too bad, despite the amount of traffic and handling it gets.
The downsides of this gate ? well, yes ... there are a few. The threshold or ramp? what is this you wonder? I wondered too. Ultimately I think it is what helps to keep the gate in place, by anchoring the bottom, but it is a big pain. The ramp (that?s what First Years calls it in the literature) runs the length of the swinging part of the gate (17 inches) and is about 5 inches wide. It comes up off the ground in the shape of an arch and at its highest point is maybe one inch. This threshold has been a serious stumbling block for JB Houdini. At least once a week she ?forgets? to be careful, runs full steam ahead into her room and trips over the ramp. Ugh! Don?t companies test these products with real kids first? Fortunately no stitches to date ? but who knows what Miss Houdini has up her sleeve?
That often mentioned click also has to be rated a minus for the noise factor. I want to be able to lock the enemy in ? and not have them know. Another negative is that after weeks of locking herself in her room, JB Houdini still does not get it. Both girls regularly close the gate behind them as they enter the room and then whine that they are ?locked in?. Duh ? don?t close the gate. I don?t really mind, but at the crack of dawn when I am trying to get that last five minutes of sleep, hearing ?open the gate, open the gate? is totally annoying.
And the final downside is that excessive swinging has rendered the top clip (the little button that latches) on this gate useless. The gate will still lock and the clip on the bottom is VERY strong, but JB Houdini can get the top of the gate to wiggle all she pleases. I am sure one of these days we will hear of her great escape.
Please keep in mind, as with any gate you may purchase for your home, unless the gate can be MOUNTED to the wall with hardware, DO NOT use it at the top of a staircase. Again, the only type of gate that is acceptable for use at the top of the stairs is a gate that is
PERMENENTLY ATTACHED to the wall. This (and all other) pressure mounted gates (ones that require no hardware) are NOT safe to EVER use at the top of the stairs. Do you get it??
Finally, the manufacturer recommends this gate for use with children from 6-24 months or with pets. I think this is because while the gate is 30? high, an industrious 3 year old might be able to flip over the top. Fortunately for us, for now JB Houdini has not added ?gate jumping? to her repertoire.
You can check out
The First Years Hands-Free Gate and some of their other great products on line at
http://www.thefirstyears.com Thanks for reading!
?vbfc ? 2002
I write ?em, you read them -
you rate them, I own ?em!
