by Christina Linhardt

Created on: December 02, 2009

Playpens, just like any other modern convenience can be used to benefit parents or it can be abused. Of course its not good to plop your baby in a playpen the minute they wake up and leave them there all day. But once a baby starts rolling, crawling and walking, it can be a matter of safety. No one can just watch a baby 24 hours a day. Eventually they will need to use the bathroom, get a drink, or make the baby a bottle. The safest thing to do is place the baby in the playpen for a few minutes until they can give them their full attention again.

Parents set all sorts of boundaries for their children, starting when they are babies and continuing until they are adults. Parents don't allow their babies to play with sharp objects, put dangerous things in their mouth or get close to a hot stove. That's because infants have no ability to decide what is safe and what is not. A six month old has no idea that a hot stove will burn them or that they might choke on a small object they place in their mouth. A playpen is just one more type of boundary. By using a playpen, parents are simply making sure that their children are safe for a brief period of time that they can't devote one hundred percent of their attention to them.

Cribs work the same way playpens do, but you don't hear people saying that babies shouldn't sleep in cribs because they are too confining. Talk about confining, how about a car seat? Small infants or even older toddlers may not like to get in their car seat but they have to because it is what is safer for them. It is a parents job to keep their children safe, especially when they are too young to do it themselves.

Playpens are just another tool for parents, as long as they are not overused or abused. Does it make life easier for parents? Yes it makes life easier by far, and parents have to worry less about their child's safety when they are home alone with them. But that is not a bad thing. People have been inventing things to make our lives easier for years. The added benefit is that by using a playpen parents can also insure their child's safety and have a little more peace of mind.

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