Large playpen?

[KittyB52]

1 year old DD is finally crawling (she’s 98th percentile so she apparently needed to ‘build up upper body strength’ - should’ve asked for a gym membership for her for Christmas ). Of course she is in to everything, and I want to encourage her to move about. However, I have a bad back and am not in great health so am finding the constant removing her from things tiring.

We are limited with space and there’s only so much we can move/put away. So I was wondering about a playpen for her, but most of them look quite small - would she still be able to move about in one? Obviously she wouldn’t be in it all the time, but it would be great to have a break without having to pick her up every few minutes.

Ideally we’d construct some sort of ‘baby run’ so she can crawl up and down without being able to get to the Xbox/DVDs/a box of tissues.

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We can see this thread is quite old now so some of the suggestions may be out of date, but if you’ve landed here looking for recommendations, we’ve recently updated our best playpen page with plenty of great options tried and tested by parents on the Mumsnet forums, including larger-sized ones. We hope you find it useful.
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They're generally quite small. We bought the iFam plastic fence - it looks alright and you can buy more pieces to extend it if you want to. We have ten pieces. I think there are cheaper versions of the same thing available on Amazon.

We’ve got this one and have used it for both our DS: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LOH8DCO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_uSMXAbZTMR4FJ?tag=mumsnetforum-21

It’s massive to be honest and takes up a third of the lounge, but has been invaluable! I’ve also used it at half the size by removing panels (smaller versions are also available), but my toddlers didn’t enjoy the smaller pen. Ours is filled with toys but there’s still space for the little ones to move about. Great for when I need to cook dinner / pop to the toilet etc.

However I can’t wait to get my lounge back once DS2 has outgrown this.

We have one that can be used as a room divider so we use it to section off the TV, fireplace etc. It was very unpopular when used as an actual play pen!

I bought an extended gate from Safetots online to fit an alcove in our kitchen, we decided on this because it can be left open and the space still used at night, we take the floor up and have stools at the breakfast bar.

I have the same one as mohunter for our twins as its massive, I would recommend it.

It’s a great idea - we had a large square playpen and it was so useful for the tiring 1-2 year age so you can sit and have a quiet cup of tea.

That Amazon one looks amazing! Thanks for the replies.