9 Best Playpens Reviewed to Cut Down the Hassle

The calm of knowing our children are safe. With the world pushing us to a more job-oriented life, every second of peace of mind we have with our toddlers, matter. That’s when the idea of best playpens comes to mind!

Playpens are encircled of areas that help maintain the baby in a safe environment as the daily home routines can keep on going without the worries the first steps or the crawling age. They create a safe and enclosed area for the babies, giving them a lot of space to comfortably explore the growing process of their own bodies.

Not only they provide a safe environment in the house, baby playpens can help babies get encouraged to move and even help on early first steps, being a very mobile option for peace of mind even when on holidays!

I’m sure you know the benefits of this one! With the objective of giving parents and babies the best options you can find, here’s a list that can help you do the right choice for your life.

#1 Baby Care Play Mat Playpen (SkyBlue)

Baby Care’s Play Mat Playpen comes with a few color options that have influence over the final price for you to choose, with all the options being Phthalate, BPA, Lead, Latex Formaldehyde and EVA free. This baby play yard has been tested to the European Toy Standards EN71, also being waterproof, easy to assemble, with no tools needed, and coming with thick safety panels that have been rounded and designed to lock on the top and bottom of this playpen for added stability. You can buy as many sets as you need to cover the appropriated amount of space for your baby to explore the world with freedom of movement without worrying if the pieces will fit or not, but Baby Care doesn’t give the option of purchasing extra pieces and the safety panels have a 90° angle limit, which means that with this playpen you’ll be only able to put together square or rectangular shaped configurations, and pay attention to the fact that when compared with other baby play yards designed for rectangular spaces, Baby Care’s option is among the few that keeps a stable and sturdy shape after assembled.

Some people would say this is an overpriced playpen and they’re not wrong, but most part would say this product is worth the high cost because offers the option of creating a safe space anywhere the parents need for the baby to play without having to worry with things like hazards caused by bad quality material used in the construction or the fence falling on top of the baby. Combined with a fast shipping and a low incidence of critics, this product also comes with little plastic discs on the bottom of each panel to help to make it stick on different surfaces, but before purchasing you must know that it wasn’t designed to stick on carpet floors, and when used in these situations the pieces will probably shift if parents or baby lean against it. This product is very good if your baby is energetic and active, since it’s difficult for the little ones to find a way of escaping while the parents take a few minutes to use the toilet or do something else, and to be ready to go without having any problems, just be sure of moving the door as a whole all together, because it can change from easy to open to very easy to open if you push the bottom all the way in too.

If your order this product, you’ll receive it in a good packing and find it to have a sturdy construction, with one single set enclosing 29.35 square meters for your baby to play with a world of toy’s and other needed objects always in hand. The last thing you need to know before deciding if this is the right baby play yard for your needs is that the corner safety caps can come without being completely pinched out, so you’ll have to remove the little extra plastic in the way in order for the pieces to easily slide into place.

#2 Baby Playpen Kids Activity Centre Safety Play Yard Home Indoor Outdoor With 14 Panels New Pen (14 panels, Castle)

Gupamiga’s Baby Playpen Kids Activity Centre Safety Play Yard Home Indoor Outdoor With 14 Panels comes without colors to be chosen between, but different from other baby playpens available in the market, it offers a set of two panels to be purchased separately that will allow parents to adopt this product to any needed spaces. Each panel is crafted with heavy-duty plastic, making of this a durable product that comes with specially designed rubber feet underneath the yard to prevent the playpen from slipping around. Being BPA free, odorless, non-toxic and made of a non-recycle material with HDPE, this toddler play yard is also very versatile, containing flexible connections that enable the panels to be arranged in differently shaped areas, allowing parents to administrate more than one space inside the same area.

This baby playpen is very easy to assemble, take down and adjust to differently shaped spaces, offering a colorful design to complement the activity wall, keeping babies and toddlers distracted with educational activities while parents take a break. If you choose this product, you won’t have any problems with adaptability, since it can be used on carpet, hardwood, vinyl, tile and bumpy floors, coming with suction cups on the bottom and removable rubber strips that will make parents life’s easier. This product offers a big space after installing with stable fences that your baby can use as support to stand and give the first steps, but the door can be a little tricky to use, since the gate latch sticks, getting difficult to open and close.

The buttons on the clock can seem too small to be left around babies and toddlers, but they require lots of efforts from an infant to be taken out, but I’ll leave the advice of removing the sticker, because it can come off easily and we don’t want our babies having contact with any kind of hazardous materials. In the end, this product presents a high price when compared with similar products available in the market, but you’re making a good deal for the quality and durability you’re assuring your baby.

#3 Baby Playpen Kids Activity Centre Safety Play Yard Home Indoor Outdoor New Pen (multicolor, Classic set 14 panels)

Gupamiga’s Baby Playpen Kids Activity Centre Safety Play Yard Home Outdoor New Pen comes with a few color options that will influence the final price for you to choose and, with the advantage of being an indoor and outdoor playpen, it has the differential of being designed to offer a bright and cheerful stimulatory space full of shapes, colors and built-in toys that will entertain any baby for long periods of time. This baby play fence promises complete safety, but also comes with an important warning on the instructions for babies not to be let out of adult’s sight, since the gaps between the panels are pretty wide, having space to trap little legs and arms. For this, Gupamiga also offers in this product an anti-slip design on the junctions to keep your baby safer from the danger of being struck by the playpen.

This is a lightweight product, easy to assemble and to take down without the need of tools, that offers a BPA free, odorless, made of non-toxic and non-recycle material with HDPE, and smaller width panels that will make this product more flexible than other options available in the market, allowing parents to install it configured for a big variety of spaces. It can come with a bad packing and a specially designed rubber foot underneath the yard to keep it sturdy in place even if your toddler tries to push or drag this baby play fence around. Being high enough for your baby to have a good support to stand and walk, exploring the big amount of space offered by this playpen with freedom of movement and comfort, it’s also very large, being big enough for parents to accommodate themselves inside the playpen while taking care of the baby.

Most people would agree that this is an overpriced product, but for the quality you get, I would say it’s just a fair price and still be cheaper than Baby Care’s Play Mat Playpen. It also comes with a molding technique that promises to make the structure stronger and durable for years, and a safety lock that, you must know, can be allowed to disengage by some movements of the gate. In the end, this is one of the best toddler play yards available in the market in 2018, having plenty of distractions to keep babies engaged and space for parents to feel comfortable inside.

#4 JAXPETY Baby Playpen Kids 8 Panel Safety Play Center Yard Home Indoor Outdoor New Pen

JAXPETY’s 8 Panel Safety Play Center Yard is a colorful playing area for your baby that comes with an instruction manual, a picture house, ball spinners, a play telephone and a door that features a safety lock for parents to relax while leaving the baby alone. Made of PE, it’s easy to assemble, having an installed diameter of 1.87 meters and being 0.60 meters tall. It’s possible to remove panels to make the fence smaller and to separate them for storage, but the warning label is glued on the inside part of the playpen, so you might want to take that out before putting your baby in.  Depending on the surface you install, this baby safety fence can be moved around, but this is no need for worries, since it won’t fall on top of your baby, and the design contains rubber feet underneath the mat to protect the floors and generate more resistance against movement. With a fast shipping and one of the best prices available in the market in 2018, this product is durable and sturdy enough to protect your baby for long periods of time.

#5 Costzon Baby Playpen Kids 8 Panel Safety Activity Center Play Zone (Blue)

Cozton’s Baby Playpen Kids 8 Panel Safety Activity Center is made with bright colors and polyethylene material, which is non-toxic and extraordinarily stable, offering a safe environment for your baby to learn and explore the world. The pack comes with an instruction manual and eight panels that you can adjust into different shapes to keep your little one playing area always an interesting and versatile space. To better protect your baby, the swinging hinged door comes with a safety lock, and to make the baby’s space bigger, you can add as much separated panels as you want. Be advised that this is a light weighted product that your baby will be able to move as soon as a little more pressure is applied, and that the stickers that come with the product are made of low-quality material, but the diameter of the product after assembled is 1.87 meters, giving your baby a good amount of space to move around. Being one of the cheapest baby playpens available on the market, this product offers a fast shipping and can be easily assembled and disassembled, need to be taken apart for storage, but be very easy to carry around. 

#6 Baby Playpen Kids 8 Panel Safety Play Center Yard Home Indoor Outdoor New Pen

Best Choice Products’ Baby Playpen Kids 8 Panel Safety Center Yard doesn’t come with different colors for you to choose from, but It’s designed in bright colors that catch infants attention and comes with an activity wall to keep your babies busy for long periods of time. With a good safety lock designed for toddlers not to open it easily, it has swinging hinged doors and is made of hollow plastic, being soft enough for an infant to fall against the walls without getting hurt. With the possibility of being assembled to act as one long barrier, this product is durable and can be easily cleaned by wiping. The end joints need a little work to be disassembled, and the product has some gaps that will allow older toddlers to try some climbing, but they are also important for babies to pull themselves up and start walking around.

This is a sturdy toddler play yard that can be customized by parents to adapt to the baby’s necessities, but to assemble the product with square or rectangular shape, you must purchase the corner pieces separately. This baby playpen is large enough so when your baby becomes a toddler and start making pulling up movements, it’ll handle being grabbed while your baby gives laps inside training the first steps. If you decide this is the right product for your baby, my tip is to check the product for small plastic pieces that might have stayed behind on the manufacturing process and find them before installing the product for your baby to use. Another point that you might want to be an attempt to is the suction cups, that don’t really stick, being there more to prevent scratches on the floor, but can break easily. You won’t be losing much if you take them off since they don’t prevent babies from moving the safety fence.

#7 Delta Children 36″ x 36″ Playard, Novel Ideas

Delta Children’s 36’’ x 36’’ Playard is a colorful product with a collapsible design that is travel friendly, including a mattress and a carrying bag, but can also be difficult to put together and take down, being heavier than other similar products, what gives the stability for when your little one is playing with lost of energy. Being 9.77m large, 9.77m width and 0.71m high, this is the best baby playpen for newborns and younger infants, being recommended for children still unable to climb out and that is less than 13.6Kg and can hold up to 15.87Kg. This baby play yard meets or exceeds all ASTM and CPSC Standards and JPMA Certifications, and presents your baby with engaging artworks on all four sides of the playing crib while still allowing the parents to watch the baby due to its mesh material.

If you decide this is the perfect baby playpen for your family, you must know that it can come with a light factory smell and that this product is manufactured with lower quality materials, having compromised durability because it’s designed to grow with infants of similar ages, but being sturdy and mobile in a way that is hard to find in other products available in the market. The bottom cover can’t be washed and the pad is a little flat, but you can solve that using a thicker sheet while your baby plays, what will even give you a better hygiene control of your baby’s developing space. With the possibility of arriving with a bad packing, this is one of the cheapest baby playpens you’ll find for the offered quality.

#8 Versatile Play Pen – Large (16 pieces)

None’s Versatile Play Pen is a bright colorful product that comes with sixteen pieces, including rounded corners designed to offer a better space adaptability, but can only be assembled in two different configurations. It measures 1.82 x 1.82 meters and if you purchase the extra-large version of this product, it’ll arrive in two boxes, being very easy to set up and move around if you need to use it outdoors, being also reasonably easy to take on travels, but I recommend not to leave it outside to prevent cracking from weather. This is one of the best playpens for twins available in the market in 2018 because of the amount of space it offers, going from a small configuration with eight panels to a very big one, but that can be a little unstable for older toddlers, using sixteen panels, taking a lot of room but being big enough for toddlers and crawlers to move around and even for parents to have a comfortable amount of space when playing with the babies. Besides having a very high price, there’s no other product of this size with this quality in the market, and if you’d take other product to make this size by purchasing smaller sections, the total cost would end up being the same or higher.

Made of hollow plastic, this toddler play yard is sturdy but soft, presenting tired parents with a well-constructed safety fence that won’t hurt the baby if they fall during play time, but before choosing this product, know that the sections can’t be used as standalone gates and the playpen by itself doesn’t have a gate for safety reasons. This is a very strong product for your baby to crawl and walk, but you must pay attention to older toddlers that might try to do some climbing inside this playpen. It also stacks well when taken apart and is easy to clean up by wiping, but you must be careful with the assembling process for the pieces not to start breaking prematurely due to overuse and to the spaces between the columns on each panel, that are a little narrow. And the last thing you need to know about this product is that the panels come with little round rubber disks to prevent the playpen from sliding around with your baby playing inside.

#9 North States Superyard Colorplay Ultimate Playard

North States’s Superyard Colorplay Ultimate Playard comes with a few color options that influence the product’s final price, and an access door that could be easier to operate, but comes with an outside locking system, granting more safety for your baby. The door can be a little loud, so try to avoid using it with the baby asleep. It comes with six adjustable and removable panels, enclosing up to 17.18 square meters and being 0.66 meters high, also having two optional panel extensions that can be used to increase the playpen size to 3.15 square meters. This product doesn’t require a real assembly, all you have to do is lift up one panel while pressing down the other and the pieces will fit together like a puzzle, but it also comes pre-connected, so it’ll be even easier on the first assembling.

This kid’s playpen can be installed over any surface when indoors because it comes with skid-resistant pads that keep the playpen from slipping or scratching the floor, and being lightweight, includes a carry handle that makes easy to take this product anywhere your baby needs. It can also be used outside, and if you chose to purchase this baby playpen, you’ll be receiving one pre-assembled toddler play yard, twelve skid-resistant pads, one carrying strap and one instruction manual. With weather resistant panels, this baby play fence can be installed outdoors, being also easy to clean with mild soap and water. For one of the best prices on the market right now, this baby play fence offers good stability and storage facilities that make all the difference, is designed not to have nay cross-bars that can be climbed by babies and toddlers. It can be difficult to open and close but folds up nicely and when assembled is sturdy and well built.