When I was growing up in the 1980s, our local church was a busy hive of both older folk and young families. Among the facilities at the church was the ‘cry room’. This was a separate self-contained room just off the main worship space, with one wall featuring a long window of one-way glass and a loudspeaker fed from the church.
The idea was that parents of young children who were becoming fractious or noisy during the service could take them into the cry room and attend to their needs while still being able to watch and hear the service. Mothers would also use the room to breastfeed their child or change a dirty diaper.