Need a Baby Gate? I’m Giving One Away.
This giveaway is a partnership with Nakturnal, with a prize of a gift certificate.
When I had my first baby, I went through all the things I could possibly need: pacifiers, swaddle, crib, diapers, wipes, clothes, on and on and on. However, when prepping for newborns, a lot of times we focus on the first three months of items we’ll need and forget what we may need when they start crawling, stumbling around or hit the terrible twos. One of those items I really needed and realized fairly quickly after my daughter first began crawling and getting into E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G was a baby gate.
We found two baby gates and used them endlessly through our daughter’s infancy and our second baby, but even as they continue to get older, we still find a couple pretty creative uses for the baby gates around our house.
Below are some great alternative uses for baby gates when you’ve passed that stage, but for those of you attending a baby shower sometime soon or in the early stages of motherhood yourself, don’t forget to check out my $50 Gift Certificate giveaway at the very bottom.
3 Alternative Uses for Baby Gates
- Pet blockade. It seems like more and more families have or adopt pets, and especially when their kids get old enough to
askbeg for a pet. Sometimes, when we have company over, are cleaning or just want to keep the dog and cat out of the way but not secluded to a kennel, we put up our old baby gate. This gives them plenty of room to hang out in the area they’re stuck in without getting into whatever we’re trying to do. - Storage decor. Yes, I said decor. If you have a home office, workshop or even as straight decor in a living room or kitchen, you can paint your baby gate, mount it to the wall and hang or store items on it. Some ideas for items (depending on how your baby gate is set up) is to utilize the holes of a baby gate by hanging items like plants, tools, sewing gadgets, craft items, paint brushes, scarves, etc. from it.
[sc name=”Baby gate” ] - Donate it. This one may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised by how many people throw out their baby gate(s) because they’re not quite sure what to do with it. If you don’t use your baby gate anymore and have no desire to repurpose it, think of a friend who’s pregnant or just had a baby and reach out to see if they could use it. If all else fails, drop it off at a local thrift shop.
Now that you know what options are available for your baby gate years down the road after kids, we can focus on what’s most important: keeping your babies and toddlers safe! If you’re pregnant, just had a baby or have reached the point you’re beginning to realize you’re in dire need of a baby gate, check out diapers.com and take advantage of my giveaway below.
What shenanigans would your little ones get into if you didn’t put up a baby gate?
One of my babies got into and dumped out an unimaginable amount of food from our kitchen pantry while the other took the infamous tumble down the stairs.
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We still keep our old baby gate around even though we don’t really need it for a baby. I like to gate of the bedrooms during events at our house to keep the kids out!
My daughter is 4 and we still use her gates lol… baby gates are seriously the best!
They really are the best!
You know what sucks? My 4 year old now climbs over the banister and is able to get up the stairs and then she freaks out because she can’t open the gate at the TOP of the stairs without my help so then I have to help. So the gate at the bottom is useless, but the top one is great LOL!
Haha! Leave it to kids to figure that out!
Currently using our baby gate to make sure our preschooler doesn’t wake the rest of the house up.
I may need to do this for our terrible two-er. Far too often, he likes to wake up around 4 or 5 or 6 a.m. and slink around the house, wake us up or his sister!
I love using a baby gate as a pet blockade! We turn ours sideways to make it super tall so my cat can’t crawl over it!
Kyla
Wanderlustkyla.com
That’s clever, Kyla! We’ll have to try that!
I honestly got a little confuse about “baby gate” until I saw the photo! I remember my Mom have this at home for my baby sister and we always teased her that she’s in prison coz she can’t get out, hahaha funny memories 🙂
For Urban Women
So cool! I never thought of some of these
Great suggestions here! Yes, my little ones would have gotten into all kinds of trash, cleaning products and put many things in their mouths if it wasn’t for a baby gate to keep them put while I got things done!
Taking all the DVDs out of the entertainment center!
books, cabinets, refridgerator
Such great ideas. I’ve always used baby gates for pets, but never thought of decor! great idea 🙂
Thanks, Katie!
Have two boys. Never needed a baby gate. However, my 4 year old now is able to open the main door and I need to secure that thing from him. Great post indeed.
Thanks, Aish!
I use baby gates all the time as a pet blockade. It’s great during the holidays when I want to keep my dog out of the dinning room. He sheds a lot and I’m always worried his hair will get everywhere.
My daughter would head for the bathroom…she is fascinated by the toilet paper.
My little guy would go up and down the stairs constantly!
he would go check out the cat litter box if we didn’t have the gate
My little one is enthralled with the stairs – I’m sure that he’d be up and down them constantly without a gate!
My kid would probably empty the refrigerator if we didn’t have a baby gate!
I don’t have children so I can’t really relate to this post. It’s great that you can find alternative purposes for the gates though!
Great ideas! I use a baby gate in my garden as a garden lattice for climbing plants. Works the best!
I used to have so many of these and now none. I love your ideas and I could have used them.
I love your re-purposing ideas. We’ve actually been discussing checking the local thrift shop for a baby gate for our dogs. Do you know if they make them for outdoor areas?
My child would have taken everything out of the kitchen cabinets.
she would get into the DVDs!
The cat box! And that would be awful, if that happened. Ugh!
How innovative. Love the idea of giving products a “new life” and new uses. While I don’t have kids, these are great suggestions to share with friends. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Rosemary!
omg without a baby gate? he would be running all over the house like a crazy baby!
These are some great uses! We don’t have a baby gate yet, as our daughter is not born yet, but I will keep this in mind for the future.
drawers, cabinets, bathrooms.
try to climb up the stairs
My grandkids go straight for the dog food and water or towards the basement steps, every time. I’m embarrassed to say that our gate broke about a year ago and I’m using a table leaf :). I hit my knee everyday!
Every cupboard and drawer would be emptied onto the floor! Gating the stairs protects curious little ones too!
WOW! thank you so much for featuring my post. Designitvintage.com
What a great post! 🙂
You’re SO welcome :). Loved it!
We needed a baby gate for the top of our wrought iron stairs. They had several selections here: http://www.shoppingblox.com/stairgates. We ended up zip tying the edges but it still worked out great.