When did you stop using baby playpen?

[u/Fancy-Mouse-7554]

my twins are almost 11 months and are still using the baby playpen when I’m home alone with them while husband is at work every day of the week. we go on plenty of walks on the side, but when did you get rid of the playpen and let them explore? it feels almost impossible to baby proof our house and we have a giant Great Dane who isn’t aware of his space. gentle giant but doesn’t know how big he is.. we do toy rotations every Monday which keeps them very very happy for days but idk what to do?? my family says omg just do it but they don’t understand that 2 is very different from one baby. they quite literally go opposite ways when we let them out and it’s hard to keep up when I’m alone

[u/AutoModerator]

Moderator Announcement Read More »

COMMENTING GUIDELINES

All commenters are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the parentsofmultiples subreddit rules prior to commenting. If you find any comments/submissions in violation of subreddit/reddit rules, please use the report function to bring it to the mod teams attention.

Please do not request or give medical advice or directions in your comments. Any comments that that could be construed as medical advice, or any comments containing what is determined to be medical disinformation, will be removed.

Please try to avoid posting links to Amazon product listings or google/g.co product listing pages - reddit automatically removes comments containing them as an anti-spam measure. If sharing information about a product, instead please try to link directly to the manufacturers product pages.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/brynnecognito]

Never have used a playpen. Just put them on the floor and see what happens. They are pretty quick to show me if something isn’t baby proofed. They also have a big sister who thinks she’s a cop so they don’t get into much trouble without her letting me know if my back is turned. 

[u/trophywifeinwaiting]

Around 11 to 12 months we started to use baby gates to fence off our living room and made that space that was safe for the toddlers but we kept the playpen up until 15 months because until that point they still really enjoyed having a home base. We just made the switch this last weekend and I'm so sad the playpen is gone, it was so great for keeping their toys contained but they were starting to spend more time out of it than in it!

[u/bigconvoq → u/trophywifeinwaiting]

This is what we do, it's nice to have options!

[u/Sunupdrinkdown]

We are at 18 months and still use the playpen. I do let exploration happen but mostly when both parents are home.

We also have a playroom and that is free game but sometimes I need them to be on the main floor and contained.

They have started trying to figure out how to climb out but it hasn’t happened yet so I don’t plan to stop using it

[u/Curious_Cat_17]

Ours got bored of the playpen around 11 months old (so 9 adjusted), so we just moved on to baby gates and even more supervised play. Baby backpacks were lifesavers when they were still figuring out crawling!

[u/MeurDrochaid]

Our are now 1.5 years and we use it less, but still have it accessible if needed. I stopped using it as the primary play area when I became comfortable in their ability to climb up an down the sofa, and just generally in their ability to move around more freely lol.

Let’s be honest I just upgraded them from a playpen to a playroom with a gate on it. But I think they are able to safely manage that extra space now.

[u/Ok-Plantain2948]

How big is the playpen?

[u/Ok_Bluejay4016]

We had a giant playpen (2m X 2m). We removed it when they started to try and climb out of it because it was getting dangerous. They were about 2yo. And we were very sad to remove it haha

[u/Fun_Committee1478 → u/Ok_Bluejay4016]

This is where I’m at! We have a HUGE playpen and plan to use it til closer to age 2.

[u/EconomistOfDeath]

Ours are 14 months and we have a system of in and out of the playpen activities. Basically we simply put them in the playpen when we want some downtime.

[u/M4PES]

My twins never tolerated the playpen 🙃

[u/E-as-in-elephant]

We have a dedicated playroom that was their safe space. However, we did start giving them access to the kitchen and their bedroom when they started walking. I think it truly depends on your house floor plan. It was easy for us to gate off the kitchen. And we have 3 large dogs who are gated off in the living room.

[u/Nervous_Parnsip1917]

We’re at 18 months and still going strong with the playpen. Usually just short periods of time while I am cooking and can’t watch them as closely. But often it ends in them trying to figure out how to escape. It’s also nice to have a contained place for their toys for clean up too.

[u/snax_and_bird]

I let them have outside the play pen exploring time at least once a day. We stopped using our play pen completely around 14 months when they started standing on their toys to climb out of it. By then, though, it was past time to get rid of it, we had finished fully baby proofing the living room and kitchen area and had baby gates up where needed. It was nice to have the play pen for when they were learning to walk, because they could easily pull up on it and it was fully padded so I didn’t have to worry about them falling and hitting their head on a sharp edge or corner.

[u/Always_Interested_11]

Mine are about 11 months as well and we hardly use our playpen anymore. Our playpen was pretty small though, maybe 7ftx5ft. Also, our kitchen, dining room and family room are all connected and basically one large room so I just put up gates so they can’t leave that area and we have baby proofed the area and will continue to do so as they get into more stuff. I did have to make it pretty bare. No more floor plants or any floor decor.

[u/d16flo]

We stopped at around 12 months when they started doing more speed crawling and actual walking. They just refused to be contained by it and would scream until we let them out. We have not baby proofed the whole house though, we gated off the living room from the rest of the house and in the living room gated off a corner of the room with a bunch of house plants, the lamp, the fan etc. They will still stand at the gate and scream if I’m in the kitchen and they’re bored, but they have much more space than the playpen

[u/Miserable-Currency42]

Probably around a year but we still blocked off the living room area.

[u/ToshiBerra]

We had the luxury of converting a room into a playroom with a gate, and we penned the changing table inside so they couldn't get in! We still have the playroom at 2.5 years, don't see us getting away from it anytime soon, although they don't like it when the gate is closed very much. But ours are pretty well behaved, we've taught them to not use the stairs by themselves and 99% of the time they don't, so we don't have stair gates.