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View Full Version : Any experience with stationary gated play yards (advertised in Right Start)?



EKWalsh
04-25-2002, 05:54 PM
Does anyone have any experience with this stationary playyards advertised in the Right Start and One Step Ahead catalogs...not a Pak-n-Play but a the five-sided gated areas that you can furnish with a foam floor to create a play area?

We live in a very small house and our primary baby space also doubles as our family room/office for two work-at-home professionals. While we are planning to baby proof the whole house (and have already purchased a baby proof electic strip for our computer), we're still stumped by how to safeguard all of our computer equipment,work manuals etc. We don't have a lot of money for new furniture, safety equipment etc. We keep a close eye on the baby and try to let him explore as much as possible (he's 6 months now...rolling but not crawling) but once he's crawling we may be in trouble. A friend has one of those playyards and says that it's been a life saver (they live in an open loft). We thought would put two playyards together and basically give our son half of the room as his play area, where he can keep all his toys, balls etc.

Any feedback on this idea, or on any babyproofing ideas that might fit out situation.

suzska
04-26-2002, 12:03 AM
It sounds like you're talking about the KidCo PlayDen. We have one for the same reasons you mentioned--we couldn't figure out how to childproof the computer area (even though it's in an armoire now). Our son was cruising at an early age (although he didn't start walking until 5 or 6 weeks ago).

We didn't get the one with the padded floor. We just have it on a large, braided rug. We got the 6-panel basic PlayDen, plus two extension panels from http://www.BabyCatalog.com. They seemed to have the best price, especially since we were ordering other stuff and got the one-year membership/10% discount. The PlayDen takes up most of our TV/computer room, but that's okay. I know he's relatively safe in there, and will still play while we make dinner, watch TV, etc. Sometimes he even naps in there. It's worth having the two extension panels, because one of us can fit in there with him, along with a bunch of toys. We have ours arranged in sort of an elongated octagon, instead of a perfect octagon, since that's what works in our space.

I tried to attach a (not-so-good) picture of "happy Evan" in his PlayDen taken two months ago, but I kept getting errors. :-(

--Sue B.
SAHM to Evan Jeffrey 03-11-01

EKWalsh
04-26-2002, 10:12 PM
Very cute! Our son is named Evan too...Evan Joseph. May be a good omen for the play yard. Thanks for the feedback!

suzska
04-27-2002, 10:44 PM
:-) :-) Joseph is/was my second choice for a middle name. DH is Jeffrey John and his dad was John Joseph. So we decided on Evan Jeffrey (or E.J.). But if there's ever a #2 son, he will probably be Nathan Joseph (unless I come up with something else by then).

Evan is much more popular than I thought when we picked it out. (But then so is Nathan.)

--Sue B.
SAHM to Evan Jeffrey 03-11-01

webma
05-02-2002, 04:58 PM
We have the playden too and think it's great. I got the standard frame plus 1 extension panel from dmart2000.com. I skipped the mat since it only fits the octagon with no extensions and instead use a blanket which is easier to wash anyway.

I looked into another product (superyard XT maybe) but went with the playden. The deciding factors were that's it's tall with vertical bars to discourage climbing and it has a door. It's very similar in design to the safety gates made by kidco. I use it against an open wall to make an almost square space for more room inside and less protrusion into the room. I'll probably have to anchor it to the wall later. (Right now I just have the ends it wedged in place between furnture so dd can't push out the sides.)

suzska
05-02-2002, 11:33 PM
If you want something that anchors to the wall, then you probably need the Configure Gate--same thing, because it uses the same extensions as the PlayDen, but each end is made to attach to the wall, I believe, so that you can "wall off" an awkward shaped area, like at the bottom of the stairs that are open on both sides.

suzska
08-25-2003, 11:13 PM
Okay, here's a "better" photo of Evan "breaking free." ;-)

--Sue B.
SAHM to Evan Jeffrey 03-11-01