Great advice, thank you ladies - I never thought about the distinction between 'safety' and 'baby' gates.

The carpet or rug at the bottom of the stairs is a good idea but wont work as the landing is only just big enough to allow the front door to open and the clearance at the bottom of the door is too low. Anything there would stop the door from opening. Our place is a rental too so we can't do anything about that.

I am leaning toward a retractable gate at the moment though as the last gate we had in our old house for DD1 was a standard slam shut gate. The gate ended up failing dismally due to my clumsiness though! It was positioned in a normal hall (no stairs to worry about ) and unfortunately the child lock to open it was very effective and numerous times I rushed through, thought I had opened it and crashed through it, tripping and falling over it... bloody dangerous when once I had DD in my arms. I ended up bending the gate so that it no longer locked properly. I am paranoid about doing that with another gate - not a great thing at the top of stairs.

I figure I will be unable to 'crash' through a retractable gate and will have to open it properly to use it!! Has anyone successfully used a retractable gate?