Okay to let happy baby hang out in crib?

My daughter is about to be 9 months and does very well napping and sleeping in her crib. She usually has a bottle in there as well as a lovey that her pediatrician recommended (I know that’s very much up for debate safety wise but not what I’m looking to discuss here).

When she wakes from her naps or from overnight sleep, she rarely ever cries out anymore. Just hangs out in her crib, plays with her lovey, looks around, etc. Totally content. I’m so used to her waking me up crying every morning so this change has been welcomed BUT…I’m worried whether it’s okay to let her hang out in there after waking if she’s happy? And for how long?

We have the owlet sock and video monitor and I check in on her via the monitor often. But sometimes I wake up in the morning and have no clue how long she’s been awake because she hasn’t made a peep.

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Adding - she is otherwise a very loud, energetic baby. She has a huge playpen with toys but doesn’t like to be in it alone. So the fact that she’s so happy alone in the crib is unique.

I let my son play in his crib if he’s content for typically 10 minutes . Long enough for me to finish what I’m doing and use the RR before having him out on the go.

My girl (8 months tomorrow) will play in her crib for long periods of time if I let her. Just this morning, my monitor said she’d been awake for 38 mins and she was just sitting in her crib playing with her pacifier, talking to it lol. My only concern is that she will associate her crib with play and affect her sleep, but so far it hasn’t. She also enjoys her bottle in her crib (didn’t know that was controversial!). I’m curious what other concerns you are worried about?

If she is awake from the nap earlier than usual. So I let her hang in the crib too and mornings too when I just want some extra mins of sleep 🙈

I let my son do it all the time. He gets a bottle in the crib, falls asleep and I go in and get it. When he wakes up in the morning my monitor will say he was up for the past 30-45 mins and he just plays in the crib with his pacifier. When he starts crying or when I’m ready for him, I go grab him.

my sons pediatrician said it’s okay to let him hang out in the crib happy!

I don’t have any particular concerns I just didn’t know if I was being a crappy mom for letting her hang out in there and squeezing in the extra sleep 😅

@Stephanie you're a great mom. If baby is happy there's no need to disturb

My baby does the same! We usually let her hang out and play in her crib until she starts to get fussy and then we grab her! In the mornings we’ll usually stick to 15-20 min since she sleeps through the night and i want her to have food fairly soon after she wakes up.

definitely not! Independent play is really important (and so is some extra me time). The fact that you wrote this post tells me your baby gets plenty of love! Enjoy that extra time to yourself 🙂

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