Is it wrong to ignore screaming baby in playpen?

[weebigmamma]

He's had his breakfast and now everyone else needs to get theirs. He screams in his chair, the jumperoo and the playpen. He wants to get out and crawl about in the kitchen b ut it's too dangerous. He is safe in the playpen so I have left him there screaming for 10 minutes and I'm ignoring him because engaging makes it worse. Just want someone to tell me that this is OK! Everyone has gone upstairs to eat because he's being so loud.

I think when your life has calmed down you'll look back at this with embarrassment. For the main people have been trying to help, including me.

You attack pp for making a suggestion you do all the time and you criticise them saying they must be the best parents in the world.

And you stand by this? Parenting topic or not, your replies have been unreasonable. I didn't judge your op, but I'm damn well judging you now irrational quick to anger stubborn nit wit

You are doing your baby no harm at all by sometimes leaving him to cry for ten minutes, OP! He has been fed (before everyone else), is perfectly safe and is simply not getting to do what he wants (ie crawl around the kitchen floor) for a few minutes! His crying is a demand, not a need, and will be forgotten as soon as he's picked up after everyone's had their breakfast.

Family life is the art of the possible, not the ideal. The only damage done in this situation is to your eardrums!

For people saying "baby proof the kitchen" that works for a big middle class detached kitchen with a wooden table in the middle. Where the oven isn't also the grill at baby height.
It doesn't work for little long cabin kitchens with no eating space.
Also I have cared for/taught several kids with awful scars on their hands and fore arms because of glass oven/grill doors: babies don't have a jerk-away reaction so skin burns can get deep before they let go.

Mind you my solution is a £13 "antilop" chair with ALL THE TOYS.
However dd is a pfb so there's rather less juggling.
I doubt 5 or 10 min grizzling would hurt him.

Why all the swearing?
Aggressive response to a range of replies to your question. None of those replies was that aggressive or extreme.

OP I hope your ok. It's a tough job being mum and keeping everyone happy. There have been a few times I've posted on MN and gotten some harsh responses (well I thought they were), it made me feel like shit and I probably already felt like shit so it just got to me even more! Mostly I just sulked to myself a bit but did feel like going on a bf rant like you have and then remembered it's MN and it's so vast and you will have people saying what they think as they do and not really knowing that they are actually upsetting someone. Try to shrug it off as the diversity of MN. In regards to your op, I don't think any harm done but maybe have a think about what you can do to make it all run smoother. my dd watches cbeebies but that's another thread to get flamed on

I love all the people saying "just put him in the highchair" when the OP clearly says he cries in the highchair as well. So in what way is that better?

OP if you're still around, I left my daughter to cry in her playpen when I had to, and she's now a lovely, perfectly well adjusted, eighteen year old. To be frank, it's far from the worst thing I did as a parent.
You do what you have to do, and babies are actually remarkably hard to fuck up. Not getting his own way for ten minutes is something he will recover from very quickly.

Both DCs had toys they were only allowed to play with when in the (large) play pen. Only one at a time, obviously.

This would give me at least 20 minutes of time before they got bored and wanted to come out. As soon as they cried to come out I would take them out unless I was doing something that couldn't be left and then I'd talk to them and explain I was putting the iron away, or whatever, and then they'd be out.

Sometimes they'd ask to go in the playpen and I'd seize that time to do something that was dangerous when they were wandering about.