Rock N' Play for outside?

[Liziz]

DD will be 3.5 when DD2 is born in July, and as DD loves to be outside (and is a 10x better behaved kid outside!) I anticipate spending lots of time outdoors the the infant, too. I thankfully have plenty of options for shade, but I'm considering what would work best to place the baby in. I've also seen the Rock n' play love over the years on this forum, and while I have a swing and a friend just gifted me another swing/rocker type thing (Rockaroo?) neither is conducive to just grabbing quickly and easily to bring outside. Do you think a Rock n' play would work well as an "outdoor" seat for the baby? (Not the keep outside, just for while we're out there). For those w/ dogs....did you ever have concerns your dog would knock it over? It doesn't seem super sturdy when I've looked at the store.... TIA!

ETA: I just realized there's version out there now that auto-rock (plugging them in) -- obviously that part wouldn't be for outside..but if you were getting one, would you spring for that feature? I've never seen it mentioned on here....I'm leaning towards not worth it, but wondering if anyone has firsthand experience....

[petesgirl]

Don't know about with dogs, but I grab our rock n play a lot when we head out to the back yard. It transports very easily!

[mikala]

I used to fold it up to carry from room to room so I'm sure you'd be able to carry it outside. You would have to watch the dogs. Our rock N play wouldn't tip side to side very easily but I could imagine it maybe tipping if a big dog tried to put paws up on the head or foot sides or went under baby and pushed up hard enough to lift baby's weight.

[acmom]

I used to move ours from upstairs to downstairs all the time so I think it would be easy to move outside. We put ours on the deck several times. As far as dogs, we have a lab mix and it was never an issue. In fact one of the reasons I liked it was it got the baby away from any doggie kisses!

[elizamom]

I plan to buy the rock and play with the auto-rock feature (for baby due sept). I didn't have one with DS,4 but I've heard nothing but good things about them. I have not heard from anyone with the auto-rock feature, but I have heard moms say how they wished it had that ability. We will skip buying a swing if we do the auto-rock. I hope to use it outside and inside as well.