An infant and toddler safety expert warns parents not to do this dangerous habit with their baby safety gate.
Holly and Jill a Canadian duo active on social media and TikTok regularly share child safety tips and advice for how best to care for your baby.
In a video, Holly shared that pressure-mount baby gates are extremely dangerous when placed at the top of a staircase because they can be easily knocked down.
‘If the gate is knocked down, your baby will fall down the stairs,’ she warned. ‘They need to be further into the hallway.’
‘I would never put a pressure mounted gate at the top of a staircase,’ she said. ‘I see this all of the time in people’s homes and it’s something you really don’t want to do.’
Holly explained that the gates are dangerous due to how easily they can be opened and because they are also massive trip hazards.
‘Even small babies can knock them down – so if you want to use a pressure mount gate it needs to be at least three feet back into the hallway.’
Pressure-mounted gates also only work because they’re held together by a bar at the bottom which is a huge trip hazard.
The child safety expert warned that parents could trip on the gates while carrying their children down the stairs.
A safe alternative is a wall-to-wall hard-mount gate that is screwed into the home and cannot feasibly be knocked down by children.
