Too much time in playpen for toddler?

[lexiss]

This morning DS 17 months woke up at 6am. I got up bf him and put him in the playpen. It is one of those extra large, hexagonal playpens.

Around 6.15 I gave him some water and changed his nappy. Then I went back to bed after making sure the playpen had only safe toys and the baby monitor was plugged in.

I fell asleep and woke up at 8.30. I went out to see DS and he was happily playing with this toys. He is very into small manipulative puzzles, shape boxes, stacking cups etc at the moment and he was busy playing with these.

He had been in the playpen for nearly 2.5 hours! Is this too long? Is there a problem that he plays happliy for this length of time by himself?

Most days I have a nap during the day for an hour or so and DS spends this time in the playpen but I have never left him for 2.5 hours before.

What do you think about this?

piglet thanks I will check them out.

flogging to help the child feel happy and comfortable in there when the parent is not there.

I have 2 DC already, what next child? My DD who is 19 months frequently wakes up at 5.30- 6up until a few weeks ago she was up BFing 2/3 times a night. My DS who is 5.5 only started regularly sleeping through the night until about 7 months ago so I'm well aware of sleep deprivation!

I wish I had one, I would defo put the Xmas tree in it! I don't know how I'm gonna keep dd2 away from the tree

haha mrsd, this was also the demise of our playpen. By the time ds was about18 months he just pushed the sides about to where he wanted to go. Ours was huge too, took up all the lounge.

UUgh to the suggestion of putting furniture in front of sockets. For a start its a bloody pain when the hoovering needs done. Secondly, i dont have enough furniture, and thirdly, my lounge would have looked plain weird and higgidly piggidly if thats how i arranged my furniture!

We have pressure stairgates also but find they are easily moved out of place, not by ds2 but by bloody ds 1 who seems unable to open then and step through without somehow accidently kicking them.

Have you read this ? Sockets are pretty much safe unless your child has something small to stick in them.

We don't use a playpen. DS is 19mo. He can't yet open doors thank god . While I shower I close the stairgate upstairs and leave open the bathroom door and the door to his room. He can come and see me if he wants or play in his room. I'm in the shower for less than 10 minutes anyway, but if he goes quiet I check on him.

Heaven forbid you actually enjoy being a parent, do anything just for you or get enough sleep! Motherhood means suffering, and the more unpleasant the experience the more it proves how good you are at it

What am I suggesting the OP does?

I would also say it was prob too long being in a room himself , I would agree napping on sofa beside him so he knows you are there is better and you are alerted if anything untoward happens.
Extreme maybe I know but you can't hear something such as a fire on a baby monitor.
What if he had a dirty nappy my 17 mth quite happily would trot around in her dirty nappy she wouldn't alert me to it by crying so if it had been her in the playpen in a different room she could have been sitting in poo for over 2 hrs.
hope you manage to get some proper sleep soon -horrible suffering from insomnia .

hmmm maybe ds playpen wasn't so much to protect ds from danger, but to protect my house for ds. I didn't want to go for a shower and come back to stuff (usually foodstuffs) squashed into my dvd player, or find ds naked on the window sill. Much easier all round for him to have been in his playpen with his toys, safe and happy confined.

I do enjoy being a mother and I'm a good one, it's nothing to do with 'suffering'.

MaryZ

There's little to be gained debating with the hard of thinking

In defence of Goldenbear ( not all of us who get up early would call ourselves martyrs)- I used to get up at 5am quite regularly with DD1 and with DD2 am often up at 5.30am. I'm so used to it it's a way of life (and i don't think I could physically sleep past 8am now even if I got the chance to)

Dcs go to bed early (6.30-7.10) (because they are up so early)- so I get an evening. I know which I'd rather have.

There are larks and there are owls. I appreciate it some people are terrible in the morning. Which is why my DP never gets up early at the weekend.

What time counts as silly o'clock is very subjective.

DH's first alarm goes off at 5:45am, so for us, I wouldn't count 6am as silly o'clock (but then, DS usually sleeps till about 7am).
Given this, me getting up at 6am because DS woke up, wouldn't count as me being a martyr, as DH would have already woken me up.

But I can see that if someone didn't normally have to get up until 8am, it'd be very annoying, and tiring, to be woken at 6am.

Ruck ruck ruck...

I came on this thread with OPINIONS but I see that there is absolutely nothing left for me to say. And I'm busy choking back tears of envy at the thought of a child who will entertain themselves for a whole hour

If you want to get up at 6am then great, no problem - presumably if your child wakes up at 4am you'd try to get them back to sleep.

If you want to get up at 8am, then if your child wakes at 6am then you try to get them back to sleep.

One position isn't morally superior than another. A child no more needs to get up at 6am than they do at 4am.

jolly thanks I read that later. My worry is if he has wet/damp hands or licks the switch.

IMO - I would be reluctant to class myself as being good at parenting until my children are fully functioning adults. But that's just me perhaps.

ChippingIn, again speak for yourself.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/wooden-playpen-/200853437539?pt=UK_Baby_Baby_Safety_ET&hash=item2ec3cc3c63

My playpen is similar to this but bigger. It takes up the whole front room when set up and is flexible so can be put in different shapes and formations.

Hardly a cage. More protective barriers.

I think it is too long. Could you not move the playpen into your bedroom if you're really tired.

Well ok I'm a good mother at the moment - nothing to do with suffering.

The more suffering you do the better mum you are?? Doubt it tbh!! Some people are blessed with 'perfect children' who sleep through and are good and easy with everything!!! My dd is completely the opposite!! Many problems doesn sleep through /still on purée I don't sleep and my health suffers so much due to a the stress but am I a better parent than the one wih the 'perfect child?' nope because I regretably snap at dd on several occasions due to 'suffering!'