A solicited review
The good people at LeapFrog contacted me awhile back about reviewing some of their toys here on my blog. Noah likes his LeapFrog Turbo Twist quite a bit and so I said I was game. But these are toys for babies and I feel cautious about baby “learning” toys so they sent me product descriptions first and I told her which ones looked interesting and how old Madison is and she nicely sent them all instead of just choosing one.
Now here’s the thing about infant “learning” toys — a little goes a long way. I’m not worried that Madison won’t know her ABCs or 123s unless a digital toy teaches them to her but I have nothing against early learning toys that are fun. Too many of them aren’t fun or one bit educational (Fisher-Price Little People I’m talking to you! Was it really necessary to take the joy of making the plastic cow go “moo” away from the small fry? Did they really need their open-ended play slammed shut with your digitized animal noises?).
Anyway, I got these two big boxes of LeapFrog toys this week and Brett and I went through them last night and there’s one toy that I wish I’d had when Madison first started thinking about walking. I can’t remember when she started pulling up to play at the coffee table but there was a month there when she couldn’t cruise and she kept knocking toys off and then crying because she couldn’t get them. We bought a play table at the resale shop but we had to lodge it up against things and wedge it in with pillows because it was so light she would have flipped it if we hadn’t. There’s one LeapFrog toy that would have saved everyone’s sanity because it’s just the right height for nearly cruising babies, is sturdy enough that it won’t flip and has plenty to keep them busy.
Wait. I’ll grab a picture of it.
It’s the LeapStart Learning Table.
The other thing I like about this is that it’s not just ABCs and 123s — it also makes music. A lot of music. And there is a ton of stuff to do on it. If I had had this at a certain stage of Madison’s development, I could have: taken showers, made lunches, finished a chapter, talked to my sister on the phone or written a filler. I know burn-out on toys is pretty high for babies but this has two modes and so much to do that so it looks like a workhorse of an infant/toddler toy.
The music is pretty good (it’s not tinny or weird and you can set the volume) and it’s very easy for even a clumsy baby to wring a tune out of it. As far as I’m concerned, this is the score in the box of LeapFrog goodies. Oh and it speaks Spanish as did most of the toys in the box.
I still get the appeal of the baby playing with pots and pans but sometimes the lure of pots and pans wears thin and yet dearest mother still must find a way to fry an egg or sew on a button (who am I kidding — I leave the button-sewing to Brett) and then it’s nice to have a big, electric, light-up geegaw to help make that happen.
And that is my solicited review. (I am not sure which baby in our life is going to inherit this toy — first my sister is going to take a look for Lucia and then we’ll see.)
(Also, I don’t see every toy they sent on the site but the one we’re going to keep for Madison is this one: 100 Hoops Basketball. It’s meant for little kids but you know Noah is going to want to slam dunk it, too. I’ll be curious to see if it’s fun enough to keep her attention — it has some jazzy music as it counts and she’s way more about jazzy music than she is about counting. If she can keep it “singing”, she’ll want to play with it.)
Hah. While we were waiting to go meet Hannah, I trolled eBay until I got the OLD Fisher Price Barn, with the little cows that don’t actually moo and the door that makes that “meh” sound when you open it. The new barn just infuriated me.
We got X a My First LeapPad when he was 2 (prior to the Little Touch, which may have been more appropriate for a 2yo). I thought it would be over his head, but what I really liked about it is that it introduced him to the stylus and practicing pointing w/it. He quickly figured out that he had to press the green Go each time he flipped the page. By the time he was at the age when most kids are introduced to it, he was an old hat. But the early games were interesting enough to him even a year earlier, like the music book, which didn’t necessarily require following verbal or written directions.
We opted for the IntelliTable instead of the Leap Pad Table, but I don’t think it was the better choice.
Scruffy had that table and loved it! It was a gift from his first father, so we still have it stored somewhere.
We also have some Leap Frog or Leap Pad little yellow computer that he loves. It has a cursor and he does different activities on it.
we didn’t put batteries in the little people toys. at some point, my kids noticed the buttons, or speaker, and asked what it was about, but mostly, they ignored it and just made their own noises.
When we brought our Peanut home at 12 months (from Kaz), this toy, amony others, was waiting for him. It was by far his favorite. We had ever seen him so excited by it! Today at 21 months, he still loves it, and now he’s getting into the learning side to it, not just the music. Oh, and lately he’s enjoyed standing and balancing on top of it too, much to my dismay. I recommend it to EVERYONE.
Yours speaks Spanish? Mine is 1.5 years old and if it speaks Spanish that is news to me.
We didn’t get this until my daughter was already walking (1st birthday present) and I know what you mean, it would have been great in the 8-12 month old timeframe. Actually we had it out for about a year (from 1 to 2) and it really got some good use.
Question for you: how old do you think would be “too old” for the leap start table? JD, Denise’s youngest, had one and Nicholas had a BLAST with it. Nick isn’t walking yet but loved pulling up and playing with it. I’m trying to figure out if it is a worthwhile first birthday present or if it would be a waste of money.
Any idea in that topic?
Jenna, I think it’s a good first birthday present. Madison would like it still if we had it but she’s got a couple of other music-playing toys so as tempted as I am to give it to her, I’m going to give it to my sister to give her to her almost 2-year old instead. (Madison can visit it there.) It’s got enough going on that it’s not as grow-out-able as similar play tables.