I bought 2 of these gates because I'm moving to a new townhouse which has 2 flights of stairs and my 15 year old dog is blind. When we toured the place the first time, he fell down the first flight of stairs so I knew I needed to get some baby gates before we moved in. These gates don't require mounting hardware, they have a notched row and you slide the little metal half ring into the notch to lock it to the size you need. I had thought doorways would be fairly standard in sizes but none of the notches work for my doorways. They're either too far apart or not enough. There isn't a notch that fits so that the gate is taut. It's a good thing my dog is small because any pressure on the gate would cause it to fall out of place - and down the stairs. I would never use this for a child.