Okay so my 1st Ciao product review – so go easy on me!
When my son was a couple of months old I started looking round for a baby-gym. I wanted something that had a little more than the seemingly standard pastel soft toys on and this seemed to fit the bill. Quite a few places stocked it for £17.99 but then I saw it on offer for £12.99 in Woolworths and couldn’t resist. However, I haven’t seen it for a while and am unsure if it has been discontinued in favour of the ‘next-stage’ multi-product.
The product is advertised as a 6-1 toy, however the main uses are as a baby-gym and a walker – the other uses are just a bit of a gimmick really.
On opening the box the baby-gym was self-assembly, but this doesn’t require any special tools and is very straightforward – taking only a few minutes.
As a baby-gym it is a very good toy – it has three hanging toys – a rattle, a mirror and a clicky ‘book’ – and on the frame itself there is a spinning ball on one side and a glittery spinning butterfly on the other. The toys are attached with joining loops so you can also hang your own small toys from it. The only ‘con’ as a baby gym was that there weren’t enough loops to make the toys low enough for a very small baby – however this can be rectified by buying extra loops (Mothercare for example), or even using ribbon. In addition to using the gym for my son while lying on the floor I also used while he was in his bouncy chair – this gave him a slightly different angle on the toys. The height of the gym enabled me to do this – a factor which other gyms may not have.
The other main use of the toy is as a walker. Again it was extremely quick and easy to convert the toy from a gym to a walker – in fact during the intermediate stage we converted it back and forth a number of times a day! This is a very sturdy walker, and although it has wheels there is no real danger of it ‘scooting’ away from under the child. The walker has a tray on the front with can either be used with the activity tray (bit of a grand description for what it is) filled with the toys from the baby-gym or left empty to carry other things in. My son first ‘walked’ with it at 9 months (have just looked back at the video to confirm this age ) and continued using it as a walker even after he started walking unaided. The makers claim that the toy would be used until 2 years – this may be the case with a late walker but after about 15 months my son had no real interest in it – I had hoped that he would use it to put thing in the little tray – but he wasn’t interested in this – however others maybe.
I wasn’t that impressed with the other claimed uses of the toy, shapesorter, activity tray, (can’t remember the other two – shows that they aren’t really ‘real’) – I think they are a bit gimiky and added in order to boost the ‘uses’ i.e. the 6-1 claim. Regardless of this it certainly does the job for the two main uses.
I noted the age group at 0-12 months, but in fairness I think it is more like 2 – 15 months.
Overall, The toy had quite a long life (a year is a huge time in the life of a baby of this age), was very robust and well used by my son. Given the price is it excellent value for money – I would definitely recommend it.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: It is six toys in one, as it grows with your child. Disadvantages: Another toy that takes up space. Why are the good toys big? Not that I'm saying this is overbig, but is big enough.
Advantages: It is six toys in one, as it grows with your child. Disadvantages: Another toy that takes up space. Why are the good toys big? Not that I'm saying this is overbig, but is big enough.
May 7th, 2004
very helpful by (94%):
helpful by (6%):
