How to Childproof a Landing Platform at the Top of Stairs: Practical Tips From a Parent
I was halfway down the hall with a basket of folded bath sheets when I heard the quick, scrabbling patter of bare feet behind me. I didn’t even need to turn around to know it was Milo, my 18-month-old, who’d figured out how to open the bedroom door two days prior. When I did look, my heart jumped into my throat: he’d already pulled himself up onto the awkward 2-foot-deep landing platform that juts out at the top of our main stairs, one chubby hand resting on the open edge where the floor drops 10 feet straight to our entryway tile. I dropped the basket, sheets spilling everywhere, and crossed the hall in two long steps, grabbing him around the waist before he could lean any further.
That platform has been a head-scratcher since we moved into this 1950s rental two years ago. The previous owners added it to widen the top of the stairs, and it sticks out just enough to be a weird, open hazard that doesn’t fit any standard childproofing solution. I’d walked past it a hundred times, thinking I’d get around to securing it eventually, and that scare showed me exactly how much “eventually” was worth. I spent the next three nights scrolling parenting forums and watching tutorials, and every solution I found was either for standard closed stair openings or required major construction I couldn’t do as a renter.
I tried a freestanding safety gate first, propped along the open edge of the platform. Twelve hours later, I found Milo leaning his whole weight into it, and it toppled forward into the stairs, stopping just short of falling all the way down. That was out. Pressure-mounted gates wouldn’t work because there’s no wall on the stair side to push against. I thought about piling heavy storage bins along the edge, but I knew Milo would just climb them, and that’s even worse. A custom wooden gate would have cost hundreds, and my landlord wouldn’t let me cut into the trim or the newel post for a permanent install.
I called my older sister Lila, who’s been a preschool teacher for 12 years, to vent. She didn’t rush to give me a fancy fix right away. Instead, she reminded me that this isn’t just a problem with my weird old house—it’s a problem with how 18-month-olds’ brains work. At that age, kids are hard-wired to climb any raised flat surface they can find. It’s how they build gross motor skills and spatial awareness, and depth perception is still developing enough that Milo doesn’t actually understand how dangerous that drop is. Telling him “no” over and over isn’t going to work, because he can’t override that instinct to explore. “You don’t need to teach him a lesson right now,” she said. “You just need to remove the temptation and block the access.”
First, I took her advice on removing temptation. I’d been using the back corner of the platform to store our diaper pail and a bin of extra diapers, because it fit perfectly there and was out of the way. That was exactly why Milo kept wandering over there—the diaper pail lid clicks when you open it, which is catnip for a toddler. I moved the diaper pail into our bathroom, took the storage bin that was sitting halfway on the edge and moved it to a closet. I cleared the entire platform off completely, leaving nothing there but the bare floor. No toys, no books, no laundry, nothing. That alone cut down on his daily trips over to the area by 75% right away.
Next, I figured out the barrier solution that actually worked for our rental. I picked up two standard pressure-mounted baby gates from a local secondhand market for $20 total, and a $5 plastic L-bracket from the hardware store. The first gate fits across the back of the platform, where it connects to the hallway. That mounts between the two solid walls on either side of the hall opening, so it’s totally stable, no extra hardware needed. The second gate runs from the end of the first gate, along the open edge of the platform, all the way to the wooden newel post at the top of the stair railing. To keep the end of that second gate from slipping or tipping, I screwed the L-bracket into the side of the newel post. The screws are only half an inch long, so the holes are tiny, and I can fill them with wood filler when we move, so my landlord doesn’t care. The bracket holds the end of the gate firmly in place, so it can’t be pushed over even when Milo rattles it as hard as he can.
It’s not the prettiest setup in the world, but it works, and it was cheap and easy to install. For people who can’t drill even tiny holes, I tested another solution first that works for younger, less mobile kids: a heavy-duty tension rod stretched across the open edge, with a cut-to-fit baby safety mesh attached to it. The mesh is thin enough that you can still see through it, but it stops kids from stepping over the edge. I stopped using it because Milo figured out how to chew through the corner and pull it down, but it’s a great no-drill option for 6- to 12-month-old cruisers. If you own your home and want something more permanent, a low custom guardrail that matches your existing stair railing works great—my cousin did that for the same kind of platform in her 1920s house, and it looks like it was always there.
I learned a few things that I wish someone had told me upfront. First, don’t use heavy furniture like bookshelves or dressers as a barrier along the edge. Kids can climb those, and if they tip, they can cause serious injury. Second, check the tension on pressure-mounted gates once a week when you walk past—they can loosen over time from people bumping them or kids rattling them, and a 10-second check takes almost no effort. Third, don’t feel like you need a perfect, Instagram-worthy solution. If it works and keeps your kid safe, it doesn’t matter if it looks a little janky for a couple of years until your kid outgrows the climbing stage.
It’s been two months since I installed the two-gate setup, and it’s still holding strong. Milo still rattles it sometimes when he’s chasing the cat, but it doesn’t move, and he’s lost interest in the platform entirely now that there’s nothing there to explore. I know that in another six months, when he’s bigger and better at climbing, I might have to rework it. Maybe I’ll add a second bracket, or swap the gates for something sturdier. That’s just how toddler parenting works, right? You fix what you can for right now, and you adjust when you need to. I still jump a little when I walk past the platform and see the open drop beyond the gate, but that’s just me being a mom. For now, this works.
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