We now have a Houdini at our home! JB who will be two in May got her big girl bed last November. She was creating openings in the walls when bumping and sliding her baby's crib in the room, therefore we threw in the towel and purchased her a twin bed - just like her big sister's. Her big sister (A.K.A Gabster) had made the transition effortlessly and we were hoping for the same experience.

JB found out the first night that she could get out of her bed and her bedroom and wander around the upstairs of our house. The Gabster alerted us for this when she screamed at 3 a.m. "Get this pest away from my bed".

Fine, I said to The Hubby, you are in charge now. Find a method to keep JB contained between the hours of 10 p.m. and six a.m. If at all possible in her bed, but at the least in her own bedroom. Before you suggest just closing her door, we did. We even utilized a type of plastic child-proof doorknob covers. Tiny Houdini figured it out in just days. Luckily, The Hubby went up to the challenge and arrived home with The First Years Hands Free Gate.

The First Years Hands Free Gate is sleek, white and simple to put in. It is also the fourth different style of gate to come into our house, and so i treated it with a little bit of skepticism. Others had failed earlier - what might make this gate different?

Ooooh - no hands! How cool! No more juggling a sleeping baby to open the gate. No maneuvering out of the way as the gate swings open. No need to have The Hubby make 4 trips to the home improvement center in order to get this gate working.

This gate, The First Years Hands Free Gate is pressure mounted. This means you keep the gate in the doorway wherever you intend to use it and twist the ends till it is good and stuck! No hammer and nails, no electric power drill - what's even better - no holes in the wall. Actually, there's a nut that twists to hold the little pressure pads in position. Lucky for us, came with the gate is the wrench/lock-fit gauge thing-a-ma-bobby you need to make it all happen. The pressure pads are amazing. They keep the gate's components from doing any scratches to your walls. Ours (the pressure pads - not the walls) are white and are constructed with some form of rubber. Potential clients must note that tightening up the nuts (there are four) does demand some upper body power. This gate works best when a passing toddler is unable to even wiggle it, so tighten away with the thing-a-ma-bobby.

The First Years Hands Free Gate will squeeze in any doorway that's 29" to 34" wide. Gleam 5" expansion accessible that will make this gate fit openings up to 44" wide. The manufacturer states that users might have one extension on each side of The First Years Hands Free Gate and it will still be safe. They don't recommend exceeding this number regarding safety factors. Thankfully we did not need an extension for JB's small bedroom doorway. Obviously, the extension is sold separately and almost certainly costs a fortune so I was great with not requiring one.

Ok, so you've got it in. Now just how does it do the job?? Oh this really is so awesome. The best part is that even if your kids see you opening the gate, they may NOT be able to do it. Why you ask yourself? Well, The First Years Hands Free Gate is controlled by a FOOT PEDAL! There's a gray 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch part of plastic that the adult who wants to open the gate steps on with one foot and "pow" the gate will open. The control pedal is on both sides of the gate, therefore the "opening adult" could operate the gate from other side. This did initially create a problem for us because we were utilizing it in JB's doorway and still needed to be able to shut the door to her room. The control pedal was keeping us from being able to close the door entirely. Repositioning the gate an additional inch far from the door helped this problem.

Two cool options that come with The First Years Hands Free Gate involve the fact that the gate swings open in both directions. From a mom with previous gates which are installed and can only swing one direction, trust me, this is a plus. The 2nd is the gate produces a noticeable "click" to indicate to you the gate has secured. I love this, except during the night time when I wish to have the ability to close the gate as silently as I possibly can. Never happens. And the little 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 have the ability to shut the enemy in - but not have them realize. One more negative point is that after several weeks of locking herself in her bedroom, JB Houdini still doesn't get it. Both girls on a regular basis close the gate behind them as they enter the room and later whine 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 sleep, hearing "open the gate, open the gate" is completely irritating.

Please remember, just like any gate you could buy for your home, unless the gate may be MOUNTED to the wall with hardware, DO NOT put it to use at the top of a staircase. Again, the only real type of gate that's suitable 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 (types that require no hardware) will not be safe to EVER use at the top of the stairs. You can look at The First Years Hands Free Gate and several other great baby safety gates at The First Years Hands Free Gate

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