Comments on: Urbanization and the “Baby Cage”

By: Julie

Julie — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:47:00 +0000

You’d probably get CPS called on you, no matter how secure it is.

By: Julie

Julie — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:41:00 +0000

Expense, mostly. I can as well do the same job.

By: fuzzy

fuzzy — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:54:00 +0000

Can’t tell you how many agility/herding/conformation dog events I’ve been to that there is at least one child sleeping peacefully in the crate, often guarded by the dog.

I used to leave my children asleep on the front porch, with the lab out there to watch them. No worries that any harm would come to them or that they would wander off. To this day my grandchildren kick the dogs out of the crate at the beach for naps.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:36:00 +0000

Not to be too argumentative, but the internet does not seem to agree with you:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dog+crate

Also, the primary use I have seen for play pens is for when the child is specifically not being interacted with other than verbally :) We don’t use one, instead stacking various things around the living room so the kid can wander around without getting into trouble.

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:13:00 +0000

I remember learning in a child psych class I took that even young babies are ‘afraid of heights'; ie, they refused to crawl to their mothers over a transparent surface above a drop. I wonder if that matters here. I also wonder how popular the baby cage was and why it went out of style.

By: Tusconian

Tusconian — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:12:00 +0000

That sounds like a kennel or a cage, not a crate (or what the majority of people would call a crate). That or your dog is the size of a linebacker. Either way, there is more to my response than “standing up.” More important, there is one open side to both a playpen and the baby cage. It doesn’t matter if the sides are made from mesh, wire bars, or inch-thick slabs of granite, there is an inherent difference in the ability to interact when an entire side of the playpen/cage is absent.

By: JontKopeck

JontKopeck — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:18:00 +0000

Nothing wrong with them per se, but as the go to person for DIY in my family circle, there’s no way in hell I’d ever install one. Who’d want the culpability?

By: JontKopeck

JontKopeck — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:15:00 +0000

Never seen that before, makes a lot of sense, and the majority of commenters seem to agree (or at least don’t condemn it).

Wrapping a baby up for those temperatures is a serious temperatures is a serious operation, why add to that the stress of having to undo it all then redo it every time you enter a building? If you think the child is adequately protected from the elements when you’re pushing the child around, why should it cease to be enough just because the pram is stationary?

By: Kelly H

Kelly H — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:44:00 +0000

They’d learn not to keep doing it, wouldn’t they? Kind of like some babies make a game of throwing a thing away and it being retrieved, because they learn that things are retrieved, only backwards.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:29:00 +0000

My daughter could easily stand up in our dog’s crate, and it has wire bars that let in more light than her close mesh playpen. On the other hand, I do have a much larger dog than daughter. I or my wife can fit in our dog crate.

Also, I was joking.

By: Bianchi Georgia

Bianchi Georgia — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:41:00 +0000

Honestly, the outside part doesn’t bother me. The part where these kids are suspended in the air FREAKS ME OUT. Eeek.

By: Cat McDonnell-Forney

Cat McDonnell-Forney — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:35:00 +0000

I’m reasonably certain that @google-0701efaaf6f3d137dd427f9ef68f6beb:disqus was being facetious. When my kid was about 2, she called the playpen at daycare the baby crate, so even she saw the similarities to the crate our dog sleeps in.

By: Amanda Kendel

Amanda Kendel — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:35:00 +0000

That would really suck if the baby drops a toy or pacifier out the side, as my baby girl would constantly do :)

By: Tusconian

Tusconian — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:09:00 +0000

Every playpen I’ve seen has an open top. Usually too high for a baby just learning to walk to climb out, but still, and open top, which allows a baby to stand (if it’s reached that point yet) and be lifted in and out by an adult, reach for parents, and interact with caregivers vocally, physically, and through eye contact. A dog crate is not only solid on all six walls, but usually only allows a small amount of light in, through the “door” and maybe slats cut in the “walls.” It’s also portable; I doubt that when you need to take your baby to the doctor, you lock up the baby in the playpen with some previously nonexistent lid and carry it out to the car. Similar to the playpen, the “baby cage” in the article, though about the size of a dog crate (most playpens are larger), has an open side and the baby can see through all sides except the ground. It provides a presumably safe space for the baby to observe or explore where it isn’t strapped down, and it is easily accessible by a caregiver and able to move into the rest of the world.

By: Mrs. G

Mrs. G — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:57:00 +0000

Amazing. I wonder how the overly anxious parents of today would even react to the idea of leaving a baby outside alone.

Oh, wait, I know:
http://www.cafemom.com/group/99198/forums/read/18115861/The_Babies_Who_Nap_In_Sub_Zero_Temps

The comment section makes a very interesting on cultural differences between cultures that are basically both First World, “Western” ones. And also the non-professional, yet probably on the mark, reasons given my commentators there to the differences (lower crime in Nordic countries, etc.)