Regalo Easy Step Walk Thru Gate, White
CUSTOMER REVIEW
UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PRODUCT HAS CHANGED MODELS SINCE I WROTE THE FOLLOWING REVIEW. PLEASE SEE UPDATE 2013 COMMENTS ON THE NEW MODEL AT THE END....
We needed a baby gate that was wide enough to put at the bottom of our stairs (about 41 inches), but other extra wide gates were expensive once you had to get the extensions to make them wide enough or you had to hardware mount them to the wall and who wants to screw things into their wall? Or, in our case, the banisters on one side of the stairs. (the gate DOES come with hardware mounts though if you prefer)
This gate is great and we feel it's a good value. It operates easily,couldn't have been easier to assemble and attaches securely. Our 5 month old daughter pulls herself up on it and it doesn't budge and just the other day we had a very large 18mo old boy at our house and he was pulling on it and it still didn't move.
I think there had been a previous version of this gate where a child had gotten their finger injured in it, but after inspecting the latching system thoroughly and even letting it slam shut on my own finger (it couldn't) I really can't see how anyone child or adult could be injured. So I'd say this version seems to have corrected whatever problem the older model had.
A tip for attaching it to a banister on one side, just velcro strap a board to the flat part of the banister so the pressure mounts have something to press against.
A note.... the gate will look like it's broken and won't close properly if you hold it up straight out of the box. It's the pressure put on the gate when it's mounted that ensures it closes properly.
And, a note for the surprising number of people who have gotten worked up thinking this is a "fake" manufacturer generated review..... it's not. While it's been very entertaining over the years to see people who have the time to get worked up over my review of a baby gate, I have no affiliation with the Regalo company other than as a satisfied customer. :)
UPDATE 2013: We're kind of annoyed that Amazon has kept all of the old reviews after Regalo changed product models and now probably most of the reviews you seee here which now no longer apply to this new model. It appears that the "Regalo Easy Open 52 Inch Super Wide Walk Thru Gate" now fits the description of the gate we have that I wrote the original review for and that's the one we're getting after we send this "new model" back. We wanted to get a second one of these gates because they're so great and we got what we thought was the same gate we bought in 2010 when I first wrote the review, but opened the box and nope! Not exactly the same, a newer model (the one pictured) which does NOT have the same operating mechanism and does NOT come with the same number of extensions and thus does not expand as far! The old mechanism was very easy to use one-handed. It was simply a spring loaded thumb lever. Check out the closeup of the latch for the "Regalo Easy Open 52 Inch Super Wide Walk Thru Gate" which appears to still have the old latch mechanism and compare it to the closeup of the "EasyStep Walk Thru" mechanism. This new model, after you slide back the thumb lever, you have to use your other hand to lift up another latch to be able to open the gate. Any parent knows you're going to be carrying kid+stuff a lot of the time and a gate you have to use two hands to open is a deal breaker for us! I should note that my husband has large hands and is technically able to open it one handed by pushing the lever with his thumb (instead of pulling it back as intended) and then using his other fingers on the same hand to kind of nudge the other latch up out of the way but he thinks it's ridiculous and I definitely can't physically do it.