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Tenleytown is a great area! If you're willing to commute a bit, the Bethesda/North Bethesda is really great too. We live in North Bethesda (Grosvenor metro stop, same line as Tenleytown and just four stops away) and there are tons of great parks in the area. and lots of children. Grosvenor isn't the most walkable area for what you're looking for, but Bethesda is (and just two stops away), as is Friendship Heights and Tenleytown. If you're close to the Friendship Heights metro, there's a good library there.

We used to live in DC and lived near Tenleytown in the Vaughn Place/Mclean Gardens apartment complex (we lived in a townhouse but there's also a highrise; we had a 1 bedroom but there are 2 bedrooms as well) and really liked it! Those would be cheaper than a house, but are very nice, and there were definitely some kids living there. Plus, for commuting downtown, there was an express bus during rush hour that got me to my office in like 15 mins! Or there are tons of buses that run up and down Wisconsin to Tenleytown (I think it's like a 10 min walk to either Cleveland Park or Tenleytown metros). There's a recently renovated playground too that's amazing that we just went to on a recent visit back. Anywhere near there, off Wisconsin, Connecticut, or Mass Ave--AU area/Cathedral, Cleveland Park, Glover Park, Woodley Park, etc--is very nice. If you go a bit further east to like Mt Pleasant, it's also a lovely neighborhood. I think if we were moving back, we'd try to find something around there. The (free!) zoo is closeby, too!

Downtown DC is very business-like--I wouldn't want to have a kiddo quite that far into town. I also have lived in Dupont and Logan Circles, and loved it, but it's a lot more expensive, most people I know who've had kids have moved further away from downtown. My friends who live in DC who have had kids are pretty spread out--inside DC, some are in Brookland or Mt. Pleasant. Outside the city, we know families in Arlington or Rockville. Bethesda is also really nice. Dh grew up in Potomac, but personally I wouldn't want to live that far out--I prefer a walkable neighborhood.

@britindc: I echo everything PPs have said. Tenleytown is great. I went to college there (AU) and loved the neighborhood. It's very residential and quiet but offers very easy access to downtown/monuments/Smithsonian etc.

@britindc: I live in Silver Spring, on the opposite side of the red line. I still don't know much about the area, but I am in the walkable downtown area of Silver Spring.

I will say that Montgomery county (Bathesda, Silver Spring and the general area) do have drop in play at some of the community centers. We have several in our area.

I do enjoy it. We are about 1/2 mile from the metro station and bus station as well. There are lots of restaurants, bars, and stores in the area. We live directly on the train tracks and hear trains day and night, particularly the freight trains. Our building is nice, but I wish we were closer to a park.

Getting into downtown DC takes about half an hour by metro. My commute is about 45 minutes, but I am going a little further into DC or into Virginia. Metro is having major maintenance issues and it has made the commute worse at times. You can easily get to most places by metro and the rest by bus. However, a car makes getting some places a lot easier and definitely much faster if leaving downtown Silver Spring and not going to downtown DC. We use it mostly to get to the doctor's office.