Playpen: Need Advice & Opinions

[nancyj65]

I have a Graco 3-Way Pack-N-Play that I love. I want to get another playpen for downstairs now that my son is crawling and I need a safe spot to put him now and then without constantly moving the playpen from my home office. He's 13 months old and already weighs 25 pounds. All the playpens (Graco, Century, Baby Trend) at Babies R Us are only rated for babies up to 30 pounds. There is an Eddie Bauer playpen by Cosco that says it goes up to 40 pounds, but I'm not sure about that brand. It the 30 pound limit really that important? I have no idea if my son will hit 30 pounds soon or not. Should I go for another Graco and hope for the best? Go for the Eddie Bauer/Costo with the higher limit? His daycare provider didn't think the 30 pound limit was anything to worry about as long as he can't climb out, which he can't. Another consideration for me is that I don't need all the bells and whistles with this one--he's too big for the bassinet and changing table attachments and I have those with my existing Graco anyway for future babies.

Advice? Opinions? Please help!

[suzska]

It costs a little more, but you might want to consider the KidCo PlayDen, which isn't a playpen but an enclosed area with a gate. The standard "kit" comes with 6 2-foot panels that will enclose an area about the size of a playpen, maybe a little larger. We bought two additional panels so that one of us could also fit inside. You can get the basic one with or without a pad that attaches--we didn't bother since we were getting the extensions and just have it sitting on a 5x8 braided rug. You can't easily move it from room to room, but we just keep it up in our TVRoom. I think Northgate makes a similar product that is plastic and less expensive, but it doesn't have a gate and has a criss-cross pattern that I was afraid my son would figure out how to climb. The KidCo one is plastic coated metal and just has straight bars. We got ours from http://www.babycatalog.com with the 10% membership discount--it's listed at $139.99. The extenstions are actually the ones usually listed for the Configure Gate.

http://www.kidcoinc.com/gates/pd10.htm

[mommymaria]

I will second the recommendation for the KidCo PlayDen. My son is 24 lbs and 30 inches at 9 months, so he was getting pretty restricted in the Pack 'n Play. We considered a larger playpen but decided that it would have too short of a useful life due to the 30 lb limit. We have the PlayDen with 3 extensions in our office area which gives him a good amount of space to crawl around and play. We keep the Pack 'n Play upstairs for times when I need to put him down but still be sure he stays out of trouble.

We tried a smaller plastic play area (I cannot remember the name but they sell it at TRU and The Right Start), but he was able to push it around the room. I was afraid that he would do the same with the plastic Northgate Superyard and that the lack of a gate would be a killer on my back when getting him in and out.

Maria