Playpen vs gates

[LoveKnowsNoBounds]

My little crawler is all over our house now and is courting danger all the time. For my sanity and his safety I am thinking of getting gates (2) or a playpen. I don't want to waste money so I am interested in if you had one and whether it worked for you! Thanks

[mickyndan]

HI,
I don't have either but thought I would reply. I suppose it depends on your style of house. With our house we can close all doors etc. and my bubs has run of the whole living area, kitchen, dining and hallway. If you buy a playpen he might get bored being in there and may want to be out roaming anyway. It might be worth really baby proofing your home and let him be where you can see him and be where he wants to be. Just a thought. Good Luck xxoo

[Charlyfrog]

We used a gate with DD#1 as it was perfect for keeping her confined to the lounge however we have moved to an open plan living house and so we will probably be getting a playpen as I won't be able to keep her out of the kitchen. Will probably use the gate to keep her up one end of the house (away from Daddy's computer stuff ) but for when I need to duck out the room I feel I need to know that she is as safe as possible. (and its bigger than the cot) But when I'm back I'll probably take her out of it......although I will still have some playpen play time if that makes sense.

[~Kim~]

No way would Darcy have been happy stuck in a playpen once she was mobile. We had a gate across the kitchen (occasionally) and one across the stairs top and bottom. She never tried to touch the oven or get into dangerous stuff. We gave her one cupboard that had her stuff in it and she played in there for ages. The rest of the house we childproofed. It was too open plan to shut one bit off and I reckon I'd get bored in one room for any one period. We did have latches on cupboards just in case.

[sneakysparkle]

DH built our playpen - and it has been a lifesaver!!! I love it! It's great cos I know she's safe, so I can go to the loo etc etc and not worry, and also she has her daytime sleeps in there too

HTH!

[shellbell3]

We had a playpen but once DD learnt to stand she also learnt how to push her weight against it and move around the room! Plus as she got bigger she hated it more. Now we have gates and she can rome freely.

[Rouge]

I think gates would be better long term for sure.

[*charmalea*]

yep gates get the vote here too ... we tried a playpen but ds wouldnt have a bar of it , so we changed the whole house to make it safe for him , so no matter where he is i know he is safe ...

[Rachel]

We would have prefered gates but we ahve an open plan house and it was going to cost an absolute fortune. We did put one gate on the laundry where the cat tray is. Once she was crawling we got a playpen just so i could put her in while i have a shower or have to duck outside and the ovens on or something. She doesn't spend prolonged periods of time in there as I am not a believer in caging them up, but i would also prefer her to be safe. Every other time of the day if I am around she is jsut roaming around the house and we shut the doors of rooms we don't want her in and we jsut keep an eye on her. Depends on your budget and what is practicable really.

[Rach75]

we got a playpen to begin with as Jack liked to roll and scoot and well I lost him on eday he had gone under fishtank anyway we used the playpen then when he was older we used the playpen sides as barriers we have a large 180cm opening into our kitchen cheapest gate for that size was $200+ so hubby cable tied to sides together and we have a gate we also used to use them in 2 of the bedroom door openings but just close doors now

[Ozziehoffy]

We have both. Gate at the top of the stairs.. one into eldest bedroom so we still get nice breeze into the house. Playpen so we can use it for all sorts of reasons... around chrissy tree, ironing board and across kitchen opening when needed as we can't put a gate or anything like that there due to the setup.

[LuluHB]

I will have both. Our house is really open plan too so at the moment we have a gate and doors shut that keep DD in the family room/kitchen/dining, and then another gate upstairs that keeps her in the bedrooms and family room. Once my new baby is born I will also have a playpen so that while feeding/changing "Ned" I can put DD down in the playpen so I know she's safe while I have my hands full - even with the gates she can still get herself into a fair bit of mischief!

[Tashie]

We have both. A gate for the bottom of the stairs, for Tobi's bedroom and another for the kitchen, which also blocks off down stairs toilet and laundry. Then we have a play pen that goes around the computer area. We can move the playpen shape to suit our needs, whether we want little man to have a big area to play or just a little one. It has 6 sides and very much worth the purchase.
If you end up going with a play pen, get a larger one and make sure you let them have enough time out of the pen too to get their crawling hours up. I read somewhere that they need 200hours of crawling time to get the coordination for walking.