Infant Fun: Baby Containers

[walkitout]

A. naps so unbelievably well in the moses basket and on the bed (bad mama! yeah, whatever. We knew that.), and so dislikes the Amby hammock that we have put the hammock away and got out the jumper attachment for the frame. Which is a little dodgy for her; she's kinda small for it, even tho she's big. We didn't get much use out of it for T., because the time he needed support to jump was very limited, and the physical size appropriateness/developmental appropriateness overlap was minimal (more like, nonexistent).

I also took T. to Target today to buy an activity thing (the Baby Einstein Musical Motional Activity Jumper won the toss -- its only meaningful competitor was the Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo and the piano attachment edged it out). A. seems to like it, altho again, it's slightly early days yet.

I'm currently eying high chairs, since A. is tolerant of standard baby containers, and there have been moments when I've really needed to do a little hands-on enforcement of "No!" to T., and keep A. safe at the same time. I'm hoping a high chair will help. The Fisher Price Rainforest high chair is the current contender, again based on quality of plastic crap, er, attachments. R. is convinced we don't need this, because she will shortly be in the Tripp Trapp. Me, I am not so optimistic and don't trust the restraints on that thing with a kid that isn't safe to climb in and out of it by themselves which she will not be until she's closer to a year old. The attachments (baby rail and cushion) to make it safe for a baby her age cost around $75 (and that's on closeout) and the baby rail has scary reviews (it broke and left tiny shards, or similar -- ack!).

Can a pack and play be that far off? I'm still hoping I can avoid one, but I keep thinking that the idea of making T. put away everything chokeable for a year or more isn't worth even thinking about. My friends who have more than one child insist that I just need to lower my standards a little.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Re: the pack n play --

Could you get T an over sized play pen (or a sizable chunk of room) and a way to get in and out and corral the worst choking hazzard toys in there?

-- Elizabeth

kid corral

[walkitout]

That's an interesting idea. Certainly one form of it would be to have him play with his chokables in an upstairs bedroom that A. isn't allowed into, which has some obvious and inobvious issues (like, T. wouldn't stay put, and it seems anti-family, and why put T. in what is effectively timeout). Clearly, you're thinking more pro-family: how to share the room without the things causing problems. We've already created an AV corral (there's a fence around the stereo, TV and a variety of non-child-resilient items). We don't live in a huge house, so we risk creating a series of padlocks designed to really drive R. mad (and, honestly, probably me, too).

But I'm going to give this idea some serious thought, because it's promising.

There's always a chance that A. will recognize the word 'no' and leave the chokables alone, or that we could convince T. to keep the chokables away from A. The latter possibility is fairly promising. She's already hanging out on the floor on her back (and occasionally tummy) and T. is very good when he's walking around to step over her; he hasn't kicked her or stepped on her inadvertently yet (I'm watching, with hand at the ready to block, but it hasn't even been necessary yet).

T. is not yet hooked on Legos, which would be impossible to control, so that's sort of good.

[jinasphinx.livejournal.com]

We got our high chair for free, so I'm not complaining. But if I were to actually buy one, I'd skip the fabric cover which just collects all kinds of grossness. I'm also not a fan of the 5-point harness because it's so annoying that I never use it. Although you might want the harness so you can dash to the next room in a hurry.

A mom I know (who is really cool, and whose adult kids hang out with her all the time) is a big fan of having a playpen around as a safe place to put the infant.

playpen as a safe location

[walkitout]

That's what I'm thinking. I just have to get over all the dead-baby photos associated with playpen recalls. This is what comes of reading too much.

Re: playpen as a safe location

[jinasphinx.livejournal.com]

At this point, I don't know how to compare the numbers for infants killed each year supposedly from cosleeping (and how many of those were due to parents being drunk or high), how many were killed because of crappy cribs made in China, and how many were killed by old equipment where the screws gave way or whatever. :( It makes me a little paranoid about everything, and probably means I won't turn off the baby monitor in Nicky's room until he's like 5.