Playpens?

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I have a 7 month old who is beginning to get active. We have a very small (London) 'garden' which is really a patio and although it would be nice for ds to spend time out there in the summer, need to keep him safe. Also starting to think how best to safety-proof the house. What is the current thinking on playpens? I have seen one - think its made by Babydan, which doubles up as a safety gate. Anyone got any thoughts?

Is the BabyDan one the hexagonal pen? In which case we had that and we were quite pleased with it - does take up an awful lot of room though. Never really used it as a proper pen except in an "emergency" (desperate for the loo on my own, or the meter reader blokey around or something) as ds adored playing in it as long as the gate wasn't shut on him at which point he screamed blue murder! Was a lovely focus for his toys downstairs though (at the end of his day we could just chuck his toys in the playpen so "baby mess" was confined to one part of the room!) and you can get little tents that go over it to play in when they're older, not that we ever got one.

We never used it as a safety gate although we have friends who very successfully fence off their fireplace with one and that works very well - I should imagine it would work well in an open plan type house where you want to "fence off" part of the room too.

To summarise (all in my opinion of course):

PROS: ds loved playing in it, somewhere to store toys, can be used to fence of areas.
CONS: takes up lots of space (we were glad to "regain" the space afterwards), ds screamed if left alone in it even for a second so not much use as a safety device for us.

I think at the end of the day, you have to resign yourself to watching them constantly, using playpens and cots for that few moments when you absolutely have to be somewhere else...

we thought about one for ds (now 13 months) but decided cost was too great for usable lifespan, and the thing looked too small for him to explore, but too big to leave in the room when he wasn't in it. We decided just to kiddie 'proof' the room and keep an eye on him. One idea though is a portable cot - they can double as a play pen and fold away easier than some.

for outside, unless you're overshaddowed, the sun may be an issue - there are some play tents that are fun to look at and (perhaps with a bit of rigging up) could keep your wee one in the same location while you have your eye momentarily elsewhere whilst keeping the sun off, they'll be in use longer too.

Thanks - thats all really helpful.

We also have the babyden and use it to divide part of our living room - ie: TV, video, stereo, computer. It was very useful when 20 month DS was starting to walk and fell over a lot - it kept him from too much furniture that could do serious injury. Now we tend to leave it open and try and teach him not to play with certain things and would probably remove it if DS2 was not due shortly.

Never used it as a playpen as believe that babies should explore within reason. We just tried to remove dangerous things from reach, put gate in front of the kitchen.

Personally me and two of my friends never really used our playpens as they didn't like being left in them (the children not my friends that is)they just turned out to be glorified toyboxes!!!

In my opinion one of my least used baby products.Though one of my friends did use it to keep ds away from the x-mas tree.

We have the Babydan which we use as a room divider between our breakfast/playroom and kitchen. We tried it out as a playpen but ds screamed blue murder and, like GeorginaA we found it took up too much space and just got used as a big toy dump at the end of the day. We did use it to pen in the Christmas tree though. The tree was much better behaved than ds, it never screamed or cried all the time it was in there

I used a basic wooden playpen with my first three and then the BabyDan hexagonal one for my last baby (as sister reclaimed the wooden one) and would not have been without them.

My children were very happy to go in them as all their toys were there and sat and played happily while I got on with the chores. Three of them walked relatively early (10, 10 1/2 and 11 months respectively) so don't think it hindered development at all - in fact they are very easy to pull up on and so assist in the cruising stage. (Dd was 2 months premature and walked at 14 months.) Later on when they were bigger and not so vulnerable I put it on the upstairs landing to keep them safe when we went upstairs. I also have a gate on the lounge door. I put my children in the playpen (downstairs) from birth until about 1 year old - until they were walking confidently - and then for another couple of months upstairs. I think putting them in it when they were younger helped them to be happy in it, rather than putting them in it once they could move. I do these things for my sanity - so I know they're safe while I'm trying to get things done or have a moment to myself. From their point of view the playpen was like a gigantic "treasure basket" (see thread in "other subjects" and if they cried to come out I took them out.

I was going to try and manage without for my last child but as we ended up in A & E when he was 2 months old, after the 2 year old had run on top of him I decided it was a necessity - one of my most-used purchases.

winky smiley face in previous post was an error.

We have a babydan - but have never really used it as a playpen, but for ds's 2nd,3rd and 4th Christmases, we used it as a Christmas tree pen to stop ds pulling the whole thing down and eating the lights!

I think if I had needed to use a playpen, the babydan would be one that I would be happiest with as it is so sturdy you can see in clearly and they can see you clearly too.

Ooo judetheobscure reminded me - yes the babydan was very useful for cruising around - ds loved pulling himself up on it and moving around both inside and out... Probably would have used something else if it hadn't been there, but still.

Also the gate is one of the better locking mechanisms I've seen on playpens too (far better than our stairgate mechanism!)

Heard somewhere recently that if you want to use a playpen - get your baby used to being inside it before s/he can move around - this way won't feel constricted when crawling/walking. I ummed and arred (!) about one too, but decided to babyproof the living room, and stairgate it if necessary instead. Undertsand your thoughts about outside, but can you not babyproof the whole garden if it's mostly patio?

Found the babydan playpen perfect for us, as we were able to set it up in the corner of the kitchen attached to 2 walls, making a much larger space which dd was very happy to play in. Now that dd is walking, we've changed it back to the hexagon, and plan to get the playtent cover for winter den fun !

snickers - we used the playpen long before ds could walk or crawl - didn't work for us

my 11 month babe loves her play pen it keeps her safe when I hang out the washing and stuff.It's in the play room so she play's in it while her older brothers are there with there toys with little bit's so again she's with them but not in danger.Just a thought why don't you look in the free ad newspapers there are alway's plenty in there,where we got ours in fact.If the baby isn't happy in it you haven't wasted to much money and can always sell it on again

we used a travel cot with 4 mesh sides as a playpen, we thoguht taht if she din't like teh playpen at least we were going to get some use out of it as atravel cot.
DD would go in it if I was in the same room but would start crying desperately the moment I left. Still it was useful for the odd sprint to the loo, or the front door, or whenever I just couldn't carry her with me.

But we're glad we didn't spend a lot of money on it, since its use was very limited. (but we used it as a travel cot)