# cat proof child safety gate?



## BrookEllen (Sep 15, 2008)

Hi,
We'll soon be moving our now 4 month old DD into her own room. (She's outgrowing the basinette and the regular crib won't fit in our bedroom. We sometimes cosleep but would would like to try to put her to sleep in the crib.)

Main problem is that the nursery has an outside door and our cats pee in the doorway in response to the outside feral cats we think. We almost always keep the door to that room closed so the cats don't get the chance to come in and pee. When DD starts sleeping in there we want to leave the door open so we can hear her. The walls are old-house plaster and we hear nothing with the door closed.

Our cats are good jumpers and would hop quite easily over a standard child safety gate. Does anyone have a good solution? Either an extra tall gate or slippery metal or some other substance the cats won't scale.

How do you keep the cats out of the nursery?

Thanks!


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## Masel (Apr 14, 2008)

I was surprised that my cats did not try to jump over the baby gate. I think they don't like to attempt a jump if they can't visualize a landing space. They'd jump to the higher pass through between the kitchen and dining room before they'd jump over the baby gate. Maybe I just have weird cats.


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## mytwogirls (Jan 3, 2008)

With our first daughter the cat kept getting in no matter what we tried. When I shut the door completely he peed all over the door. The cat left....for good. I would not tolerate cat pee in my house. It smelled and ruined our door. I was ALWAYS on alert with the cat because it was very jealous of her so it got adopted to a farm down the road where it lived happily ever after. I really have no other advice, it can be a PAIN in the butt to cat proof a house. I gave up, I hope you can find a better solution.


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## Mama Mko (Jul 26, 2007)

http://www.retract-a-gate.com/retractable-cat-gate.html This gate appears to be quite tall. You could also try to find a screen door that would fit in your doorway.


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## liberal_chick (May 22, 2005)

Our cats also never tried to jump the gate, but they are fat so....









Are you opposed to closing the door and using a baby monitor?


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## BrookEllen (Sep 15, 2008)

Thanks for all the replies.

rebeccajo: that retractable cat gate looks great.

liberal_chick: yeah, I don't trust monitors. In general, our apartment is small enough that we don't need one anyway.

mytwogirls: the cats barely notice the baby at all. I'm not too concerned about DD safety around them, but I certainly don't want her nursery smelling like cat pee.

We've tried all the natural cat-pee stopping solutions and they don't pee anywhere else in the house. I think it's just the neighborhood feral cats peeing outside the doorway that encourages this behavior. We just have to keep them out of the room, but not away from DD in other places.

Thanks again!


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## pumpkin (Apr 8, 2003)

One family I know installed a screen door.


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## larzanna (Jan 23, 2008)

I also would suggest a screen door. They make some now that are retractable (like a sideways shade sorta), rather than swinging like an outside door would. They are quite nice.
I would also try a deterant to keep the feral cats away from the outside...or maybe you could borrow a trap from the local humane society and trap them. I used to trap, spay/neuter and then re-release (in a new location, think large field ect..)


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